brsergt w345tw

JANUARY 27-FEBRUARY 2, 2020 VOLUME 22 ISSUE 40 • $7.95

LIGHTING UP MIAMI

Business is booming as the Super Bowl returns to South Florida for the first time in 10 years. But changes to schedules, labor and media deals lie ahead for the NFL. PAGE 40

NFL ratings show mixed early impact from online betting.

Forty Under 40: Introducing the Class of 2020.

The U.S. soccer vet who found joy, and heartache, in Ghana.

David Stern: Remembering the the man and the leader.

PAGE 6

PAGE 11

PAGE 16

PAGE 19

NICE TO MEET YOU! Come meet us 1/29 & 1/30

Register at sportsatlas.com

SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

STATE OF PLAY FASHION SENSE

In its first partnership with a North American sports league, Louis Vuitton announced that it will make a travel case for the Larry O’Brien Trophy given annually to the NBA champion.

All Aboard

MONEY TALKS

AP Images; Getty Images (2); NBAE / Getty Images

“

I like being part of a winning team.

I don’t have to be the winning team.

— Longtime Kansas City Royals owner and former Walmart CEO DAVID GLASS, who died at age 84 on Jan. 9

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

For the 22nd consecutive year, the Professional Squash Association’s J.P. Morgan Tournament of Champions was held in Vanderbilt Hall at Grand Central Terminal in midtown Manhattan. The event, which has a budget of $1.7 million and hands out $390,000 in prize money, held its final rounds in the iconic train station on Jan. 17. France’s Camille Serme (black shorts) won the women’s title, while Egyptian Mohamed ElShorbagy took the men’s championship.

CASH O ONLY

VEGAS , BABY

Plans for April’s NFL draft in Las Vegas include a red carpet setup on the water in front of the Bellagio’s famed fountains and a boat to take players to the stage.

THE METER VEGAS , BABY The NFL continues to reject any television ads from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority that shows the Strip, though that could change soon.

Career earnings during 16 NFL seasons for two-time Super Bowl-winning New York Giantss quarterback ELI MANNING, who announced his retirement last week.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

JAN. 31

The collective bargaining agreement between Major League Soccer and its players union expires. The league’s 25th season begins on Feb. 29.

J A N U A R Y 27- F E B R U A R Y 2 , 2 02 0

|

3

FORUM Strong run for NFL; industry says farewell to David Stern

T

HE NFL should feel good as it hits Miami and finishes its 100th celebration.The league has enjoyed a 24-month run of mostly positive storylines. Looking back to our preview of last year’s Super Bowl in Atlanta, it mirrored the upbeat vibe of this year: strong ratings, competitive play and good stories on the field in both traditional and new markets.

Now, that was balanced by the same concerns — inconsistent officiating, slight softness in attendance with its lowest leaguewide average, 66,648, since 2004, and player safety issues leading to the early retirements of such marquee players like Rob Gronkowski, Andrew Luck and Luke Kuechly. But there weren’t social or political issues dividing players, owners or fans, and the off-the-field distractions were manageable (see Page 50).

After the league leaves Miami and puts the bow on its centennial, it will pivot to completing a new CBA, which could significantly shake up the league’s footprint and the sports and entertainment calendar (see Page 40), as well as media deals that have the potential to dramatically reshape the marketplace. League officials and partners should feel encouraged in Miami, and barring major missteps, the pieces are in place for the league to continue its strong run.

ABRAHAM MADKOUR PUBLISHER AND EXECUTIVE EDITOR

 A FITTING MEMORIAL: There was a lot to take away from the classy memorial service for

THIS WEEK ESPORTS 9 SPORTS MEDIA: Overwatch and Call of Duty leagues pleased with ticket sales for home-based events.

By Adam Stern

GOLF 10 CHARITABLE GIVING The PGA Tour has surpassed $3 billion in charitable contributions, and plans to showcase it at upcoming events.

By John Lombardo

MARKETING 13 THE LEFTON REPORT A Super Bowl awash in red has NFL licensees expecting to rake in plenty of green.

By Terry Lefton

MEDIA 14 MIAMI BOUND Fox stacks Super Bowl coverage with enhanced technology and veteran crews on the air and in the production truck.

By John Ourand

LABOR

“

the late NBA Commissioner David Stern this month. It offered the right mix of emotion, levity, humor and depth around the man, down to Emily Dickinson’s lyrical poem, “Because I Could Not Stop For Death” filling the final page in the program. It was an extraordinary gathering of people, and you could sense the sadness of just how much people would miss their irascible but empathic friend.

“David loved being on the big stage,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said, appropriately, as the service felt “big” in front of a packed audience of more than 5,000 people. During the memorial, produced by the NBA, I wrote down terms that came up time and again about Stern — loyal, a tough friend, an emphatic leader who stressed the details and never hesitated to speak his mind. In addition, as Val Ackerman referred to it, his “grinding work ethic.”

Silver noted his good fortune of “learning from the master at the top of his game” for 22 years of his career at the NBA, and concluded by saying that Stern always told him, “It’s not how people think about you, but how they feel about you. And the feeling I have for David is I loved him.” Fighting back tears, Ackerman called Stern the “most important figure in the women’s sports movement since Billie Jean King,” and ended her remarks by saying, “We broads truly owe him.” Magic Johnson spoke eloquently about Stern’s consistent friendship and support throughout Johnson’s career, calling him “my friend and my angel” and “a man who stood for what is right.” Rick Welts also spoke from the heart about how he told Stern he loved him during their last luncheon in New York, and the graceful Wynton Marsalis said in one of the most beautifully written eulogies I’ve ever heard, “He would be your harshest know-it-all critic. But at the point of impact, he was pure caring, instilling clarity, confidence and championship.”

That emotional weight was balanced by stories of the fun “Davidisms,” such as “micro-management is underrated,” as well as the stories of young executives getting “Stern-ed” through his well-known dressing-down of employees. Another comment that stuck with me was Kathy Behrens recalling Stern frequently imploring his colleagues to use sports to improve society: “Shame on us if we don’t use the platform we have to help others.”

It was a fitting tribute, and we hope our look back at SBJ’s coverage of him, as well as personal memories of many in the business, will help everyone in sports remember the legacy of a true force in sports and society (see Page 19). SBJ is pleased to donate a percentage of the proceeds from the tribute ads in this issue to three charities designated by David Stern. A total donation of $10,500 will be split to Earthjustice, Jazz at Lincoln Center and the Best Friends Animal Society. Let’s remember the ideals and virtues that Stern stressed and stood for, and carry those forward into our efforts and that of our sports organizations.

I left that service thinking a lot of things — but mostly that David Stern did so many good things for the sports business, and we may never see another one like him again.

SBJ is pleased to donate $10,500, a percentage of the proceeds from the tribute ads in this issue, to three charities designated by David Stern: Earthjustice, Jazz at Lincoln Center and the Best Friends Animal Society.

”

15 DRAFT PROSPECT Rep 1’s Ryan Tollner sees potential franchise QB in Washington’s Jacob Eason.

By Liz Mullen

OPINION . . . . . . . . . 52

The entire contents of this magazine are copyrighted by Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal 2020 with all rights reserved. Street & Smith’s is a registered trademark of Leaders Group Holdings LLC. Reproduction or use, without permission, of editorial or graphic content in any manner is prohibited.

Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal (ISSN1098-5972) is published weekly, with the exception of the first week of July and the last two weeks of December, for $306 a year

by Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal, at 120 West Morehead Street, Suite 310, Charlotte, NC 28202.

In Canada $371 per year, includes GST and all other countries $471, includes a one-year subscription and expedited air delivery (GST#139794580).

Periodicals postage paid at Charlotte, NC, and additional mailing offices. Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal is a publication of Leaders Group Holdings LLC. Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal is an equal opportunity employer.

POSTMASTER: Please send address changes to Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal — Subscriber Services, P.O. Box 36637, Charlotte, NC 28236-6637 FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE CALL 1-800-829-9839 For article reprints, please contact newuser@ sportsbusinessjournal.com or call customer service at 1-800-829-9839.

Abraham Madkour can be reached at amadkour@sportsbusinessjournal.com.

FACES & PLACES . . 53 CLOSING SHOT . . . 54 Cover image by Miami Dolphins

4

|

J A N UA R Y 2 7- F E B R UA R Y 2, 202 0

SBJ/SBD

PODCASTS

FIRST LOOK & BUZZCAST Check out our First Look podcast every Monday where we discuss the week’s top stories. Also, check out Buzzcast in SportsBusiness Daily’s Morning Buzz, our daily two-minute look at the stories of the day.

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

upfront

Betting boost? Not yet Early data shows no direct correlation between online NFL gambling and local market TV ratings so far. BY BILL KING

T

HE INTRODUCTION of legal sports betting in Pennsyl-

vania had no discernible impact on NFL viewership in the state’s two largest TV markets this season, a reminder that the increased engagement many expected to see from expanded legal gambling may require both time and seasoning.

Even before the Supreme Court repealed a federal prohibition of sports betting in May 2018, analysts predicted that legal sports betting would deliver a boost to ratings, a key benefit that led some in sports to relax their long-standing opposition to it. The first detailed look at ratings in markets in which fans have access to mobile and online betting, though, does not show a wide correlation so far.

Local market ratings for regular-season NFL games aired on Fox, CBS and NBC affiliates in Philadelphia were up 1 percent over last season, based on Nielsen Media Research data provided by Fox Sports. Ratings for games in Pittsburgh were down 3 percent. Nationally, NFL ratings posted an increase of about 5 percent.

6

|

J A N UA R Y 2 7- F E B R UA R Y 2, 202 0

Philadelphia and Pittsburgh were the TV markets that seemed most likely to see an appreciable ratings impact from sports betting this NFL season, two cities with rabid fans who now reside in one of only eight states that allow online wagering on games.

While the New York Jets and Giants play in New Jersey, their core fan bases are split between that state, New York and Connecticut.

Results were mixed in Indianapolis, Portland and Providence, the other three Top 56 markets in which viewers were able to bet online, but it is more difficult to draw direct conclusions in those markets. Ratings were down in Indianapolis, where the Colts slumped badly this season, and up sharply in Portland and Providence, but the two cities represent just part of their teams’ fan bases.

The two Pennsylvania teams produced comparable levels of success in the past two seasons. The Eagles were 9-7 both years, making the playoffs. The Steelers went 9-6-1 and then 8-8, falling just short of the playoffs both times. The two also were slotted similarly on TV, with the Steelers appearing on Sunday Night Football three times both years and the Eagles appearing twice.

The NFL, which has been the least active of the U.S.-based leagues on the sports betting front, thus far banning promotion of sports betting through its teams and in game broadcasts, did not respond to interview requests.

Sportsbook executives pointed to several possible reasons that betting didn’t translate to viewership increases in Pennsylvania.

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

Getty Images

Seattle’s Tyler Lockett stretches high against Philadelphia’s Cre’Von LeBlanc in an NFC wild-card game on Jan. 5 that eliminated the Eagles with a 17-9 loss after a repeat 9-7 regular season. Philly NFL TV ratings were up just 1 percent despite the addition of legal online gambling.

SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

DECEMBER ONLINE MARKET SHARE – HANDLE (AMOUNT WAGERED) SHARE

PENNSYLVANIA

MILLIONS

12%

DraftKings

52%

FanDuel

$154.5

6%

Fox Bet

$16.4

9%

Parx

$25.5

Rush Street

$58.9

20% 2%

$35.9

Other

$6.2

WEST VIRGINIA 45%

DraftKings

$7.7

55%

FanDuel

$6.3

INDIANA 60%

DraftKings

$66.7

33%

FanDuel

$36.0

7%

Rush Street

$7.9

IOWA

Getty Images

The Colts’Jacoby Brissett is snared by the Steelers in a 26-24 loss on Nov. 3. Indy finished at 7-9 and local NFL ratings dropped 6 percent even with legal gambling.

Though Pennsylvania saw $342 million bet on sports in December, it took a monthly build for the state to get to that level. The NFL bars its teams from promoting sportsbooks, the only one of the major leagues to do so. There’s also a widely held assumption that most of the early adopters of legal sports betting were either betting illegally or playing daily fantasy last season and didn’t change viewing habits, which likely was the most significant factor.

“These people [betting now] were watching anyway,” said Fox Bet CEO Robin Chhabra, whose sportsbook is promoted prominently during NFL pregame shows on Fox and on the social media accounts of Fox Sports and FS1 talent. “As the sports gambling market matures and you have more [casual] people coming in, it will be those people who will tune in more often and for longer. There are early signs that that will be the case. But you’re not going to see that at the moment.”

Based on reported revenue figures and data from his own Pennsylvania sportsbook site, Chhabra estimated that less than 2 percent of Pennsylvania adults bet on sports in December, which was nearly twice as many as did so in September — clearly not enough to move ratings. As a comparison, about 7.5 percent of adults bet on sports each month in the U.K. “The thing I constantly tell people is: This is going to take time. Be patient,” said Sara Slane, a sports betting industry consultant who works with leagues, teams and media companies. “While I do think that sports

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

betting is going to be the greatest fan engagement tool that the sports industry and media industry have ever seen, to get to that point a lot of steps are going to have to happen.

“The operators are seeing a lot of success with avid sports bettors, but I think they have yet to scratch the surface with those casual bettors, which is the ultimate goal. Once they start crossing over to that, you’ll see more of a direct link between legalized states and an increase in viewership.”

Variations in local markets abound.

Philadelphia’s Fox affiliate did see a bump, as ratings for its games increased 14 percent over last season, from 17.5 to 20. In Indianapolis, ratings were down 6 percent in 2019, a decline easy to attribute to a 7-9 season for the Colts. In Providence, where fans are decidedly pro-Patriots, NFL ratings were up 18 percent. In Portland, where the Seahawks are popular, they were up 13 percent.

Not surprisingly, both Rhode Island and Oregon produced far less betting than more populous Pennsylvania. Oregon and Rhode Island reported online handles of $17 million and $8.4 million, respectively, in November.

“You’d really want to understand the data behind those [local ratings] before drawing any conclusions,” said Joe Asher, U.S. CEO of sportsbook William Hill, which provides sportsbook services to the Rhode Island Lottery. “Providence was up materially. So why is Rhode Island so dramatically up? Maybe it’s a concentration issue. I don’t know. It’s

17%

Elite

77%

William Hill

5%

$5.8 $25.8

Other

$1.8

FOUR STATE TOTAL 24%

DraftKings

$110.3

43%

FanDuel

$196.8

4%

Fox Bet

$16.3

6%

Parx

$25.5

15%

Rush Street

$66.8

6%

William Hill

$25.8

3%

Other

$13.9

DECEMBER ONLINE MARKET SHARE – REVENUE New Jersey regulators include revenue from as many as three online sites under the filings of some land-based casinos.

Those listed below generate the vast majority of revenue listed for them, but some comes from other sites.

NEW JERSEY 4%

Bet MGM

$1.0

36%

DraftKings

$9.3

47%

FanDuel

12%

William Hill

$12.1 $3.2

Source: Sports Business Journal analysis of state gaming regulator data

hard to draw any conclusion based just on these numbers.“ Asher pointed back to a 2016 Nielsen study commissioned by the American Gaming Association that predicted sports ratings increases based on survey responses from likely bettors.

“Clearly, the Nielsen study showed that pretty definitively,” Asher said.

“And that’s logical to me. Just because you’re watching the game doesn’t mean you’re betting on it.

But if you’re betting on it, you’re sure watching more of it. That’s what I expected would happen and that continues to be my view.”

NBC lands rights to MotoGP NBC SPORTS has signed global mo-

torcycle racing property MotoGP to a multiyear media rights deal, a move that gives the series newfound exposure in the U.S. and continues to build the broadcaster’s

BY ADAM motorsports portfolio.

MotoGP is a series that STERN has largely been ignored in the U.S. but one that has a worldwide fan base with events all over the globe and an Instagram following of 8.7 million accounts, the same amount as Formula One. NBC Sports will air the 20-race premier class MotoGP series on a mixture of NBCSN and the NBC broadcast channel. It also is partnering with MotoGP on an OTT product called MotoGP VideoPass for the U.S. that will include the second- and third-tier Moto2 and Moto3 races, plus ancillary content such as news conferences and features.

The series previously aired in the U.S. on beIN Sports. MotoGP’s commercial rights holder is Dorna Sports, which negotiated with NBC alongside Dorna’s agency, IMG. The size and scope of the rights fee for the deal was unclear. The sides will announce the news this week.

“We like to think of ourselves as the home of motorsport … and MotoGP was one of the few missing pieces out there,” said Jon Miller, NBC Sports’ president of programming, who added that he’s been chasing a deal with the property for more than three years. “It’s a global sport, very young, very exciting, the folks at MotoGP have done an amazing job building it to where they’re currently at without the benefit of national exposure and marketing [in the U.S.].”

NBC’s motorsports portfolio includes NASCAR, IndyCar, IMSA and Supercross. MotoGP is sanctioned by the International Motorcycling Federation, or FIM. This year, NBC will air three races on tape delay; NBCSN will air five live races; and the rest will be streamed live on MotoGP VideoPass before eventually being aired on tape delay on TV. Many of the races in the latter part of the season will air immediately following NBCSN’s coverage of NASCAR races.

Miller said NBC believes its crosspromotional and marketing expertise will boost the series in America.

J A N U A R Y 27- F E B R U A R Y 2 , 2 02 0

|

7

UPFRONT

Crisis experts chide Astros’ PR strategy

BY ERIC PRISBELL WHEN HOUSTON ASTROS owner Jim Crane fired man-

ager A.J. Hinch and general manager Jeff Luhnow on Jan. 13 for their role in the team’s sign-stealing cheating scandal, he drew some praise for taking swift and decisive action less than an hour after MLB ruled on its investigation.

But the Astros’ subsequent public relations strategy following one of the worst baseball scandals in modern history has received less flattering reviews.

“It seems to be ‘Lie low and hope it goes away,’” said Mark Bernheimer, a former CNN correspondent who is the founder of MediaWorks Resource Group, a Los Angeles-based media training and crisis communications agency that has worked with UFC fighters and other sports organizations amid crisis.

A team spokesperson confirmed that the club has “engaged external communications support to help our organization.” Crane said he plans for the team to apologize next month at spring training for engaging in the scheme during their 2017 World Serieswinning season (and the 2018 season) only after they “sit in a room and talk about it.” Some crisis management experts say that is problematic because spring training is a few weeks away and that approach risks appearing like the apology is contrived.

“They are not taking any concrete steps to demonstrate any contrition,” said Bernheimer. “In a crisis, timing matters as much as content. For them to let this much time pass before they bother to address it is just a terrible strategy.”

Commissioner Rob Manfred said no players would

be suspended for their role in the scandal. Two of the Astros’ stars — Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman — were asked about the matter at the team’s FanFest on Jan. 18, but neither expressed contrition nor regret.

Former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, who now runs Fleischer Sports Communications — which helps owners, teams, leagues and commissioners handle the press — said the best approach for Astros players is to tell the complete truth. He said Crane’s plan “sounds appropriate until the follow-up questions, ‘What exactly are you apologizing for?

Jose, what did you do? Did you get any warning listening to the garbage can of what [pitch] was coming?’ If he says yes, imagine the pummeling that will follow. If he says no, no one will believe him. And if he ducks and dodges, how will that help? That’s why I suspect it will get worse.”

A former federal prosecutor, Ben O’Neil is a partner at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP in Washington, D.C., where part of his duties include helping PR teams craft public responses. He said Crane’s plan does not portend a sincere apology because “it strikes everybody as PR bull. It’s remarkable to me to have the organization take the action that it did — the hard part is getting the team to do what it did, which is to fire people — and then not be prepared to have a strategy going forward.”

Erik Bernstein, president of the Denver-based Bernstein Crisis Management, said the Astros “want people to forget before they come out and apologize,

Back to normal? MLB sees uptick in free agency market

BY LIZ MULLEN 108 free agents who were unsigned MLB CLUBS have spent in excess of at the same time last offseason, $2 billion — more than all of last which started with 164 available. season — on free agent player Clubs have thus far spent $2.15 contracts so far this offseason, but it’s billion on free agents as of mid-Janstill too early to say that the market is uary, compared to $1.8 billion for all back to normal, MLB of last year. More Free Agent Pool Players Association big-name free Executive Director agents signed Year Declared Unsigned* Tony Clark said. early this 2019 168 91 “There have been offseason, 2018 164 108 some positive signs including 2017 166 106 this offseason,” Clark pitchers Gerrit 2016 158 93 told Sports Business Cole, who Journal. But he agreed to a * As of Jan. 16 cautioned, “We are still nine-year, $324 a month away from million deal with spring training. We still have dozens the New York Yankees, and Stephen of guys who are out there.”

Strasburg, who signed a seven-year, A total of 91 free agent MLB players $245 million deal to stay with the remained unsigned last week out of Washington Nationals, both in early the 168 available at the start of the December. signing period. But that is down from “With many of the elite free agents

8

|

J A N UA R Y 2 7 - F E B R UA R Y 2 , 2 0 2 0

which tells me internally that somebody is struggling big time against apologizing at all. Never, ever, would my advice be to wait that long before apologizing.”

To others, including Danielle Rossen, a 21-year television news executive who is now president of Rossen Media, which specializes in media training and crisis communications, the timing of a team

“In a crisis, timing matters as much as content. For them to let this much time pass before they bother to address it is just a terrible strategy.” apology is not as important as how it is delivered.

“Authenticity is what is going to be most important,” she said. “No one is waiting around for the Astros to make any more big statements — the time that it comes is not going to matter.”

What will matter is whether it’s a consistent organizational message. To that point, Amanda Hill, CEO of Dallas-based Three Box Strategic Communications — whose company has worked with large sports entertainment brands — said it’s critical that organizations have a culture of transparency and honesty established long before a scandal hits.

“The brand is one voice, so if it’s inconsistent you’re less likely to be trusted,” said Hill, speaking in general about best practices. “When people hear variations, or different answers from different people, it shows that the internal culture is not aligned, and that’s a problem.”

choosing to sign early in the looking to compete, they are going to offseason, clubs and players will be access talent that can help them do able to focus on baseball in spring that,” Clark said. “As a result, it training,” MLB Deputy Commissionappears, we have more teams er Dan Halem said in an email in interested in doing that right now.” response to questions from SBJ. Halem said spending by “clubs of Prior to this offseason, two all market sizes” sets the sport up for consecutive cold free agent the prospect of an exciting regular markets left many players without season. “In 2019, an all-time record deals when spring training started 16 clubs were within three games of a and angered the players union. postseason spot on July 31,” he said.

The current collective bargaining MLB and the MLBPA said last year agreement that was agreed to in that they would begin collective late 2016 will expire in December bargaining early, but Clark said there 2021. has not been a meeting in months Clark said free agent signings and players still have concerns why started sooner this offseason, and some clubs are not participating in teams that haven’t the market.

MLB Free Agency Spending been active in free “Regardless of $2.4B $2.15B* agency the past few what happens in years have participatthis current $1.8B ed this year. market, it’s not $1.5B “We haven’t done a going to elimi2016-17 2017-18 complete evaluation of nate the chal2018-19 this offseason, because lenges we’ve 2019-20 we are still in the seen in the last *Offseason free middle of it, but on the two years,” Clark agent spending as of mid January surface when teams said. “It doesn’t 2020 Source: MLBPA are competing or erase that. “

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

MLS clubs off to slow start selling jersey sleeve space MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER’S four-year pilot program in which teams can secure jersey sleeve sponsorships begins this season, but so far just one club has announced a deal — LAFC, which came to terms with Target last fall. Jean-Paul Dardenne, senior vice president of corporate

BY MARK J. partnerships for the Philadelphia BURNS Union, is among the executives who thought the sales process would move quicker than it has.

“We’re walking before we’re running,” said Dardenne, who added that the team has three to six proposals in companies’ hands.

“When this first came out, we all felt like it could be a quick sell.”

Both Dardenne and Sporting KC President and CEO Jake Reid said that with the lone deal, there isn’t much benchmarking for clubs.

The amount of data is scarce beyond teams’ research around media value and online exposure.

GumGum Sports, a sponsorship valuation platform, conducted a white space analysis of LAFC is the only t h e s l e eve team that has announced a patch’s pojersey sleeve tential value sponsorship. during the 2019 regular season across more than five teams that had varying degrees of performance and market size.

General Manager Brian Kim em-

phasized that the media value between social and broadcast is just one data point as teams also factor in audience size, social media presence and future broadcast deals, among other elements.

The results project a media valuation of roughly $185,000 per season for an average team. A fullseason value could be as high as $785,000 for a club within a mid-to-large market size, a strong regularseason performance and a playoff appearance.

Each club will have to pay $100,000 annually to MLS from the sleeve jersey patch deal, sources said, meaning any deal has an additional threshold to meet be-

fore it can be considered a worthwhile strategy.

Among the factors clubs have to weigh before making a deal are: Do they have the ability to execute a deal based on the current contract language with their existing main kit sponsor? Do they have both internal and third-party research to support their expectations? And do they have enough other inventory to create a package around? Those are important questions to consider, according to Jason Miller, senior vice president and head of sports properties at talent representation and marketing agency Excel Sports Management.

“It’s been a perfect storm of a very difficult situation,” said Miller. “It’s not front of shirt, it’s not nearly as valuable. It’s tough. You really have to build it out as part of a platform.”

The patch is the focal point, the Union’s Dardenne said, but brands are interested in a bigger platform, whether it’s tied to the league’s and clubs’ increased investment in esports or possibly a team’s training facility.

Sporting KC’s Reid, who agreed that the asset has to be part of a larger, fully integrated sponsorship, said the club has turned down multiple sleeve offers, characterizing the decisions as “mostly financially related.”

Teams have one chance to set the going rate, he said, and while it’s easy to cave under pressure when there’s a sizable six-figure offer on the table, thinking long term is the right move, he said.

“The brand literally lives with your brand on the jersey, so it’s a little bit different than some of the other relationships, so we’ve been maybe a bit pickier,” he added.

Ticket sales mixed, but positive, for revamped esports leagues

BY ADAM STERN

Getty Images

ACTIVISION BLIZZARD’S two city-based esports

leagues are seeing positive signs in ticket sales for early season events, but sources conceded that market results have been mixed heading into this crucial year.

The franchised Overwatch and Call of Duty leagues are embarking on new traditional sport models that include city-based teams hosting events and traveling globally for away games. Ticket revenue has thus turned into an integral revenue stream for franchises.

CDL’s season opener last weekend in Minneapolis was slated to sell out The Armory for all three days of action, with a total of 10,000 fans in attendance, according to the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal, an affiliated publication. That event was hosted by the Minnesota Rokkr, which is owned by the Minnesota Vikings’ Wilf family.

Meanwhile, New York Excelsior owner Scott Wilpon said the OWL season opener his team is hosting next month is expected to sell out the

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

2,200-seat Hammerstein Ballroom.

Those early highlights have Pete Vlastelica, CEO of Activision Blizzard Esports and OWL commissioner, feeling cautiously optimistic about ticket sales this season.

“The early events that are coming up the soonest are tracking really well, which is encouraging,” said Vlastelica, who added that a few teams are closing in on sellouts for their first home events. “We will be making sellout announcements this year, and that’s an accomplishment.”

All OWL teams are hosting at least two homestands in 2020. OWL teams receive 50 percent of league revenue from ticket sales, media rights, merchandise and sponsorship, among other items.

Most OWL teams have yet to turn a profit, but this is the first year for them to earn ticket revenue.

While Vlastelica was buoyed by early season ticket sales, he admitted that some teams are doing better than others. A separate source noted that some teams have benefited on tickets sales from building up their staffs with executives who have experience in running events.

“Teams are learning; it’s the first time a lot of organizations have had to do this in any capacity,” Vlastelica said. “Some of our teams are owned by traditional sports organizations but not all, so it’s a steep learning curve.”

Teams can set their own pricing on tickets. The Houston Outlaws’ single-day tickets for their first homestand this season cost between $50 and $90, the Boston Uprising’s are $40-$150 and the Philadelphia Fusion’s are $45-$150.

Wilpon, whose family owns the New York Mets, said Excelsior is pacing toward a sellout for the league opener despite not discounting any tickets or doing any paid advertising.

“Local markets represent a huge competitive advantage as we launch and grow this business; it easily differentiates our brand in a pretty crowded landscape and really gives us purpose and focus as an organization,” he said. “We have a massive consumer base in New York that’s already interested in gaming, and this gives them a reason to support us — the value of that alone can’t be overstated.”

J A N U A R Y 27- F E B R U A R Y 2 , 2 02 0

|

9

UPFRONT

The Market

The Waste Management Phoenix Open will look back at how Gary Woodland surprised Amy Bockerstette at last year’s event and how she in turn surprised the PGA Tour with her golf skills.

A M E AS U R E D LO O K AT T H I S W E E K ’ S HOLDINGS

HOME GAME

SSELL ELL

SHORT SIGHTED Amid a tough offseason for baseball’s image, the election of Derek Jeter to the Baseball Hall of Fame was supposed to be a controversy-free opportunity to celebrate the longtime face of the sport. Instead, Jeter fell one vote short of a unanimous total, sparking another round of controversy.

HOLD

KNIGHT MOVES Rutgers’ struggles are well known, but it’s men’s basketball team earned its first AP ranking in 41 years, the football team hired celebrated former coach Greg Schiano and the athletic department even reported an operating surplus for the first time since 2009.

10

|

J A N UA R Y 2 7 - F E B R UA R Y 2 , 2 0 2 0

$3B and counting: PGA Tour to showcase charitable efforts THE PGA TOUR has surpassed $3 billion in charitable

tournament has multiple stories and we are trying to contributions, a massive benchmark the tour will highcelebrate those folks,” said Adam Loberstein, senior light with a new campaign held over three upcoming manager of charity for the PGA Tour. high-profile tournaments.

Along with the on-site activations, the tour will rec“We are asking every tournament during the three ognize its charitable giving with a print and media weeks to lean in and celebrate their own stocampaign, including a 30-second public service ries and the $3 billion,” said Tom Alter, vice ad to be aired during tournament television

BY JOHN president of editorial development for the PGA coverage.

LOMBARDO Tour. “Each tournament has their own story.”

“We are encouraging every tournament to The three events the tour will use to showsend content out on their own channel and case its $3 billion raised for charity begin at we are creating some content that we are sharthe Waste Management Phoenix Open set for Jan. 30-Feb. ing with our players to share on their own,” Loberstein 2. It is the site of last year’s memorable event that had said. “It is giving these folks the assets they need to PGA Tour pro Gary Woodland surprising Amy Bockercelebrate it in their own way.” stette from Special Olympics Arizona with the chance The tour’s charitable structure allows the tournaments to play the famed par-three 16th hole during a practice to select their own charities. Virtually all tournaments round. Her par-saving putt went viral with some 44 milare operated by nonprofit organizations, meaning net lion views over tour platforms and was featured widely proceeds of these events go to charities. The tour first on national news outlets. This year, the tournament will raised $10,000 at the 1938 Palm Beach Invitational. It use that moment from last year as part of the tour’s reached the $1 billion mark in 2005 and last year raised campaign around its charitable giving. a record $204.3 million to help push the tour past the $3 The two other tournaments to be used in the campaign billion mark. are the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am from Feb. 6-9, followed by the Genesis Invitational from Feb. 13-16. Specifics of the activations are under wraps leading up to the events.

The AT&T “The key thing is whether Pebble it is internal or with our partBeach Proners or players, the number Am is one $3 billion is something that is of three tournaments hard to wrap our minds that will around, so we are using great highlight the stories over the course of PGA Tour’s three weeks. There will be oncharitable course activations but each contributions.

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

YouTube; Getty Images (4)

The LA Galaxy signed Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez to a $10 million transfer fee in a move that not only will be a boon to the club but also to its efforts at connecting with the millions of Mexican-Americans living in Southern California. It’s also a boost to the Galaxy’s rivalry with LAFC, one of the best in the league.

SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

Meet the 2020 Class of Forty Under 40 CLASS OF 2020

SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL begins its third decade of honoring 40

executives under the age of 40 who are excelling in their field of sports business. From teams and leagues, to agencies and brands, to player representation, media, facility design and development, these executives represent fresh and innovative approaches across all sectors of the industry.

The class includes the first Forty Under 40 honorees from a number of organizations, including two leagues, the WNBA and the NBA G League.

Two of the honorees — Nick Kelly of AnheuserSPECIAL SECTION TO BE PUBLISHED Busch InBev and ESPN’s March 16 Ryan Spoon — were previously named to the 2018 class AWARDS EVENT of Forty Under 40.

March 26 All 40 executives will be (Dana Point, Calif.) featured in the March 16 FOR MORE INFO: issue of Sports Business FortyUnder40Awards.com Journal, where we will tell the stories of their career paths and successes. They also will be honored at our annual Forty Under 40 gala, March 26, at the Monarch Beach Resort in Dana Point, Calif. That event comes at the conclusion of the annual CAA World Congress of Sports, March 25-26.

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

TJ Adeshola Twitter

Geoff Garmhausen Lagardère Sports

Maura McGreevy IMG

Whit Albohm Fox Sports

Jessie Giordano GMR Marketing

Jared Merrell Optimum Sports

Nic Barlage Cleveland Cavaliers / Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse

Adam Grossman Boston Red Sox and Fenway Sports Management

Tanja Olano LA 2028

Michael Behan Legends

Ben Gumpert Sacramento Republic FC

Gabe Braselton Populous

Brian Herbst NASCAR

Austin Brown CAA Sports

David Jurenka National Football League

Nate Checketts Rhone

Nick Kelly Anheuser-Busch InBev

Arjun Chowdri PGA of America

Akshay Khanna StubHub

Ishwara Glassman Chrein Verizon Media / Yahoo Sports

Francesca Leiweke-Bodie Oak View Group

Ahron Cohen Arizona Coyotes

Joe Maczko National Basketball Association

Wes Day Teall Capital Partners Bethany Donaphin WNBA Michael Fedele BodyArmor

Melissa Proctor Atlanta Hawks / State Farm Arena Uzma Rawn Major League Baseball Neema Sahni Covington & Burling Brent Schoeb San Francisco 49ers Adam Schwartz Horizon Media Russell Scibetti New York Giants Ari Segal Immortals Gaming Club Ryan Spoon ESPN

Andrea Marini Deltatre

Jared Stacy Amazon

Joseph Markowski DAZN

Benjamin Tario Atlantic Coast Conference

Zach Maurides Teamworks

Shelly Wilkes Lakeland Magic

J A N U A R Y 27- F E B R U A R Y 2 , 2 02 0

|

11

UPFRONT ShotTracker’s wearable technology from sensors on jerseys, basketballs and courts tracks more than 70 statistics and analytics for coaches.

properties. Through its business relationships at more than 200 schools, Learfield IMG College will look to bring ShotTracker, which currently has about 40 schools as clients, to more mainstream websites, mobile apps and radio broadcasts. As Learfield IMG College grows the different ways fans can access ShotTracker, it could become a source for new content and sponsorships.

Learfield IMG College officials are still evaluating what a rate card would look like for advertising on ShotTracker, but it could be sold in the form of a national presenting sponsorship or it could be broken up by markets.

“Learfield has most of the college rights, so they’re really well-positioned to monetize this,” said Davyeon Ross, a co-founder of ShotTracker.

“Right now, there’s this big push about improving the fan experience, so you’ve got a behemoth with all of these assets and our innovative, young company. We just need a great partner who can help us

ShotTracker, Learfield link up to expand market

BY MICHAEL SMITH ShotTracker, the basketball-focused technology that delivers real-time data on numerous statistics and player movements, has made its way into the daily routine for many coaches. Now the wearable technology has its sights set on a bigger consumer play with fans.

Learfield IMG College has worked out a deal to help distribute and sell ShotTracker to its collegiate

proliferate our technology.”

ShotTracker was formed in 2013 by Ross, a former college basketball player, and co-founder Bruce Ianni, a former college football player. Among their investors along the way have been Magic Johnson, late former NBA Commissoner David Stern and a handful of investment firms.

While the technology has been integrated into some of CBS’s broadcasts, ShotTracker mostly as a tool n Headquarters: Overland to show spots on Park, Kan. the floor where n Co-founders: Davyeon Ross, shots were made Bruce Ianni or missed, it n Founded: 2013 n Employees: 35 mainly has been n Clients: Approx. 40 schools used by coaches n Ross on starting a new to deliver more business: “Sometimes at 9 a.m., I than 70 stats and think we’re going to take over the analytics. The world. And by 10, I’m about to data, gathered sell my shoe collection.” by putting sensors on jerseys, basketballs and locations around the arena, ranges from which lineups work best together to passes and shot types.

Learfield IMG College’s Rob Schneider, chief content, development and strategy officer, said the foundation is built on its integration into the game.

“Those guys are becoming a fixture,” Schneider said. “We see this as an opportunity that’s mutually beneficial, especially as we move into becoming a more fan-centric business. The speed of the data being collected really gives you a chance to impact the fan experience, and we can expand the breadth of touch points with the fan.”

Chatlos, Ventura part of new wave of search-firm hires hires following the 2019 season, seven schools in the Power Five conferences employed a search firm. Three of the seven used Ventura Partners, a decade-old firm that hasn’t been around as long as some of its competitors such as Parker and Korn Ferry, but is starting to make strides in the competitive college sports vertical.

Chad Chatlos, a former Navy football team captain, leads Ventura’s sports practice, which recently conducted searches for Rutgers, Ole Miss, Washington State and UNLV. Chatlos, who was a principal in Korn Ferry’s global sports practice before leaving for Ventura, spoke with SBJ about that aspect of Ventura’s business.

On the competitive landscape in search: “I just think the game’s changed a little bit, and you’re seeing it. Some of these search firms had a 20-year head start on us, and they have tremendous contacts, so we’re chasing them. But I think through hustle and competitive pricing, we’ve been able to push forward and get more opportunities. Athletic directors want to pay for the level of service.

Why charge the same fee for a one-week search as a six-week search? We don’t have a rate card, and you need to have the flexibility to price the job based on what’s required, not just a number.”

12

|

J A N UA R Y 2 7- F E B R UA R Y 2, 202 0

On advising ADs about making a coaching change: “It’s not always something you can control, but if you’re going to make a move on your football coach, you better have an idea of who you can get.

It’s not a matter of ‘Let’s go search and see what the market bears.’ I think that’s a mistake.”

On mistakes he’s seen: “The biggest thing I’ve seen in working with all of these clients is they fall in love with a name and it’s not the right fit and it hurts them. Sometimes schools find themselves in a competitive environment, and they want to get a coach before someone else does and then it tends to not be the right fit.”

On the highly political process of Rutgers rehiring Greg Schiano: “Everybody’s like, ‘Oh yeah, that must have been so easy’ because he was coming back to a place where he had success. But some of those ‘obvious ones’ are the hardest ones.

The Schiano search was one of the hardest ones I ever had to do. Coming back to where you’ve had success is not necessarily a no-brainer.”

On his football-playing background: “I’m out at spring practices, I’m at the coaches convention, I’m talking to coaches at summer retreats with their agents. Having played at Navy, I think there’s a trust that’s built. Shoot, I played for some of these coaches.” — M.S.

FBS COACHING HIRES SCHOOL

COACH

SEARCH FIRM

Appalachian State

Shawn Clark

None

Arkansas

Sam Pittman

None

Baylor

Dave Aranda

Eastman & Beaudine

Boston College

Jeff Hafley

None

Colorado State

Steve Addazio

Urban Meyer consulted

Florida Atlantic

Willie Taggart

Parker

Florida State

Mike Norvell

DHR Int’l

Fresno State

Kalen DeBoer

None

TBD

—

Ryan Silverfield

None

Mississippi

Lane Kiffin

Ventura Partners

Mississippi State

Mike Leach

Parker

Missouri

Eli Drinkwitz

Parker

Danny Gonzales

DHR Int’l

Old Dominion

Ricky Rahne

CSA

Rutgers

Greg Schiano

Ventura

Brady Hoke

None

Marcus Arroyo

Ventura

Jeff Scott

None

UTSA

Jeff Traylor

CSA

Washington

Jimmy Lake

None

Nick Rolovich

Ventura

Hawaii Memphis

New Mexico

San Diego State UNLV USF

Washington State

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

Photo courtesy of ShotTracker

IN THE LAST ROUND of college football coaching

SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

THE INSIDERS MARKETING AND SPONSORSHIP

Seeing red — and envisioning plenty of green — as NFL licensees line up to cash in

N

FL LICENSEES are hoping for a sea of red.

Even before San Francisco made short work of Green Bay in the recent NFC Championship Game, the licensing cognoscenti that had gathered at the sports licensing industry’s largest annual event agreed that any Super Bowl matchup which didn’t include the small-market Tennessee Titans would produce a business boom. There was plenty of support for the Kansas City Chiefs, who haven’t won a title in 50 years, yet San Francisco — which has won five NFL championships, the most recent coming in 1995’s Super Bowl XXIX — also seemed a nice option, given that it is located in

BY TERRY LEFTON an area replete with abundant wealth.

“Chiefs would be as solid From the Sports for business as any,” said Licensing and G-III Apparel Vice PresiTailgate Show LAS VEGAS dent Eric Schapiro. “Kansas City’s already like a house on fire.’’

“We’ll crush it if Kansas City wins,’’ said Chris Lencheski, CEO of Winning Streak Sports, not coincidentally located in Lenexa, Kan., “but that would lift everyone. With [Patrick] Mahomes looking like a generational player, their national appeal is exploding.” Quipped Paul Sparrow, NASCAR managing director of licensing and consumer products, with “Chiefs/49ers, whoever had the most red blanks wins.”

When we asked WinCraft CEO John Killen how the Oakland Raiders’ move to Las Vegas this year would affect sales, he opened his company’s new catalog and pointed to the first two pages of photos, showing more than 100 Raiders products. “Global brand, new market, new stadium,” Killen said. “They should be a topthree [selling] team.’’

Logoed products with just “Raiders” was evident throughout Vegas. “Las Vegas Raiders’’ items won’t be at retail until April.

“We’re all very bullish,’’ said Sol Werdiger, founder/CEO of apparel licensee Outerstuff, which was displaying adult-sized apparel from its new performance NFL Combine license, and for its USOC rights, along with esports togs for Call of Duty.

“Look at the excitement the NHL created in Vegas.

The Raiders are an established NFL brand with a national following.”

The Raiders will also have the April 23-25 NFL draft in Las Vegas to ignite sales. “We’re planning for the biggest draft ever,’’ said Dave Moroknek, head of Legends Global Merchandising, which is kicking off its new NFL rights by administering merchandise sales during the draft. “You’re looking at a team with great colors, and a new stadium, in

Terry Lefton (5)

■ BLACK + SILVER = GREEN:

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

The Super Bowl-bound Chiefs figure to be good business for marketers, while other highlights from the show include (clockwise from top left)standalone hoodies from SoHoodie; Tommy Hilfiger’s NFL-branded apparel; a bevy of Raiders products; and even licensed duck calls from Big Show Outdoors.

a vibrant new market. That’s a success recipe.’’

“Outside of K.C. possibly winning for the first time in 50 years, the Raiders should be this year’s biggest NFL licensing news,’’ said longtime NFL licensee Adam Pennington, whose Game Time and Artinian brands will be marketing Raiders watches with retail price points of between $50 and $1,000. Still, in a bling-crazed town like Vegas, he sees potential for a limited run of Raiders diamondfestooned timepieces ranging upward of $20,000.

■ NEW PERFORMER: While industry consolidation

has subdued creativity, we’ve long been impressed by the artistry of ’47’s fan wear. That’s changing a bit, as ’47 will be the official sidelines cap of the XFL, which begins Feb. 8. Sidelines means performance takes precedence, so we’re intrigued to see those offerings. Not that fashion has been forsaken; in the pipeline are further collaborations with brands including Vineyard Vines and Zubaz.

■ MIX & MATCH: A bright spot in an otherwise lack-

luster sales picture has been the apparel collaborations mixing fashion brands with sports marks.

Fresh off a successful year of apparel mixing DKNY designs with MLB, NBA, NFL and NHL team logos, G-III was showing a new line combining Tommy Hilfiger’s bright red, white and blue palette with NFL indicia. WinCraft’s Killen reported strong sales for his company’s cross licenses using Disney’s Star Wars and Marvel characters. Vineyard Vines saw strong double-digit sales growth in its licensed apparel, especially MLB and collegiate. “Strong

apparel brands bring in new customers for licensed products and insulate retailers from wins and losses,” said Greg Sim, Vineyard Vines senior director of licensing.

The easy winner of our ongoing “Never seen a logo on that before” competition was the licensed duck calls from Big Show Outdoors, which is in Oxford, Miss., and has 20 collegiate licenses, including Alabama, Clemson and LSU. “Y’all Duck Calls” launched six months ago and is now sold by sports specialty retailers such as Dick’s and Cabela’s for $20-$25. Considering the nickname of the NHL’s Anaheim franchise, we wondered if that will be the company’s next license, but sales president Radale Reed said they’d held only preliminary discussions.

■ FOWL PLAY:

The show’s most novel new product had something missing. As in, just the part of the hoodie covering the head is being sold by SoHoodie, a New York-based company in which NFLers Michael Vick and DeSean Jackson have equity. The “standalone hoodie,” MSRP $25, carries indicia from 15 colleges, along with an NFLPA license that brings 50 players to the party. Brand Manager Mike Baruch described SoHoodie as fan wear, a training device, a hip-hop fashion statement, and perhaps an alternative to the de facto “hoodie” pro athletes fashion from Gatorade towels.

■ UNDER THE HOOD:

Terry Lefton can be reached at tlefton@sportsbusinessjournal.com.

J A N U A R Y 27- F E B R U A R Y 2 , 2 02 0

|

13

THE INSIDERS

Fox Sports will deploy a High Sky camera that will be able to venture outside the stadium.

SPORTS M E D I A

Fox Sports stacks its Super Bowl coverage with enhanced tech and veteran production, on-air teams

several innovations for Super Bowl Sunday, which will be the network’s biggest broadcast in at least three years — the last time Fox had the Super Bowl.

Fox will roll out advancements with the SkyCam and PylonCam. It will be the first Super Bowl shot with 8K cameras and it will be the first one produced in HDR,

ESPN targets South Beach Selects the same spot it used for 2010 Super Bowl

14

|

BY JOHN OURAND

which provides brighter highlights and more color to television pictures.

“Every time you do the Super Bowl, you want to raise the bar for everybody else in the industry,” said Brad Zager, executive producer, executive vice president and head of operations for Fox Sports. “We feel like we’re doing that. A few times throughout the day, we want to catch people’s eye with something they’ve never seen before.”

For the past several years, broadcasters

John Ourand can be reached at jourand@sportsbusinessjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @ Ourand_SBJ and read his twice-weekly newsletter.

ESPN DID NOT need to take long to figure

out where to put its Super Bowl compound this week — the one where it shoots all of its studio shows. It will be in Lummus Park, which spans 10 blocks of South Beach.

That’s the same location it had last winter for the Orange Bowl, which was one of the CFP semifinals. Plus, ESPN set up in the same spot in 2010, the last time Miami hosted the Super Bowl. Seth Markman, ESPN’s vice president of production, said it is likely ESPN will return to the area next year for the CFP Championship.

“We’re familiar with Miami from the many big events that we’ve done there,” said Markman. “It’s a city that we have a lot of institutional knowledge about over the years.”

New to the ESPN compound this year will be “Get Up,” ESPN’s morning show that launched in April 2018 but did not travel to last year’s Super Bowl. The crew has started to move away from the studio more — it produced shows from the NFL draft in Nashville and the CFP in New Orleans.

“It’s exciting for me to have one of our signature shows, especially at that time of day,” Markman said. “It rounds out the

J A N UA R Y 2 7- F E B R UA R Y 2, 2020

Just like it did a decade ago (shown), ESPN’s compound will use the art deco hotels and restaurants as a backdrop for its coverage.

whole day. The past couple of years, we started out later in the day. Now, we’re back to round-the-clock coverage of the Super Bowl.”

ESPN likes the spot because it is a crowded area of Miami, especially later in the week as kickoff gets closer. ESPN will shoot toward the art deco hotels and restaurants; the ocean will be behind them.

“The thing I especially love about that

spot is the amount of people that are down there and the energy that’s down there,” Markman said. “Of all the Super Bowls, it’s one of my favorite places to go.”

Markman said the crowds energize ESPN’s on-camera analysts.

“Because our guys are so used to being in the studio all the time, when our shows get out there and feed off that energy, it reignites them a little bit,” he said. — J.O.

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

Fox Sports; ESPN Images

F

OX SPORTS IS PLANNING

have shot the Super Bowl with two SkyCams — one regular SkyCam and something referred to as a High Sky camera that shows all 22 players on the field. This Sunday, Fox will take that High Sky camera even higher — outside of the stadium.

“Because of the way Hard Rock is built, the High Sky cam will be able to actually raise above the roof of the stadium, which will be a cool feature that we worked out with engineering to figure out how to utilize the stadium,” Zager said.

Not only will Zager’s team have cameras in every pylon in both end zones, it plans to install highspeed cameras in them for the first time, which will allow for a much clearer replay than pylon cameras have provided in the past.

Fox’s telecast will use augmented reality graphics, and will use more high-speed cameras than it has in the past.

“With those cameras, we’ll be able to blow video up to be able to see if that guy’s foot was inbounds or not inbounds eight times before it gets somewhat blurry,” Zager said.

Fox will not just rely on technical bells and whistles. Its game talent in front of and behind the camera has a lot of experience with producing Super Bowls. This will mark the sixth Super Bowl produced

by Richie Zyontz. “There’s been 54 Super Bowls, and Richie has done more than 10 percent of them,” Zager said.

Play-by-play announcers Joe Buck and Troy Aikman will be calling their sixth Super Bowl.

Rich Russo will be directing his third.

“The fun part about planning this Super Bowl was starting with a position of strength — both in front of the camera and in the truck,” Zager said.

“It alleviates a lot of the stress in planning for Sunday.”

SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

LABOR AND AGENTS

Rep 1 bullish on Eason; Octagon signs prospects

U

BY LIZ MULLEN

NIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON quar-

terback Jacob Eason has signed with Rep 1 Sports for representation in the the NFL draft both on and off the field.

NFL agents Chase Callahan and Ryan Tollner are representing Eason as teams evaluate him both in the draft and for contract options. Nima Zarrabi, Rep 1 vice president of marketing, is representing him for all off-the-field work.

Many draft analysts see Eason as a potential first-round pick, but Tollner, who represents multiple starting NFL quarterbacks, including the Steelers’ Ben Roethlisberger, Eagles’ Carson Wentz and Rams’ Jared Goff, said there won’t be much doubt about it come April.

“He is going to check a lot of boxes — if not all of them — to be a franchise quarterback,” Tollner said. “Those players are just so hard to find, you don’t just sit back and hope to get them beyond the first round.”

Eason was the top quarterback coming out of high school in Washington state and chose to go to Georgia, where he started as a true freshman. But after an injury, he was replaced by Jake Fromm.

Eason then transferred to Washington, but had to sit out a year due to NCAA eligibility rules. He threw for 3,132 yards and 23 touchdowns with eight interceptions at Washington last season before declaring for the draft.

Rep 1 also represents Texas wide receiver Collin Johnson, Dayton tight end Adam Trautman, Temple center Matt Hennessy, Cal Poly wide receiver J.J. Koski, North Carolina safety Myles Dorn, Auburn tackle Jack Driscoll, St. John’s tackle Ben Bartch, Michigan State linebacker Joe Bachie, and LSU long snapper Reid Ferguson. Agents Ryan Tollner, Callahan and Bruce Tollner are representing them.

■ OCTAGON SIGNS NFL DRAFT PROSPECTS:

Getty Images

Octagon has signed a handful of prospects

cluding kicking for 418 points, the most in Georgia’s history. He also set a Rose Bowl record with a 55-yard field goal in 2018, and is being represented by Casey Muir.

“Rodrigo is a generational kicker and the best allaround kicker in this draft class,” Muir said. His stats include a field-goal percentage of 83 percent, compared to an average of 79 percent for all kickers drafted in the past 15 years, Muir noted.

B l an ke ns hi p i s a l s o known for his personality and his attire, especially his thick black-rimmed glasses. He has more than 81,000 Instagram followers Jacob Eason made a successful transfer from Georgia to Washington, where he passed for 3,132 yards last season. and about 29,000 Twitter followers. He thanked latefor the NFL draft, including Iowa offensive night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel for tackle Tristan Wirfs, a projected firsta shout-out with his hashtag #Respectround pick, and Georgia kicker Rodrigo TheSpecs.

Blankenship, winner of the Lou Groza Muir said, “Our marketing team is exAward as the nation’s top college kicker. cited to be working with him for different NFL agent and former NFL offensive content opportunities and brand partnerlineman Jeremy Newberry represents ships.” Muir is also representing Duke Wirfs, who was listed at No. 30 on ESPN defensive tackle Trevon McSwain. analyst Todd McShay’s NFL mock draft ■ METZ SIGNS VIRGINIA QB: Veteran NFL last week. agent Eric Metz has signed Virginia quarIowa is known for producing NFL offenterback Bryce Perkins for representation sive linemen, and players at that position in the NFL draft. don’t generally get much publicity. But a Metz represented Perkins’ father, former video of Wirfs lifting 450 pounds recently NFL running back Bruce Perkins, who went viral on social media. played for the Indianapolis Colts and the “Tristan is the most explosive big man Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the early 1990s.

I’ve ever seen,” Newberry said. “I’ve never seen someone power clean 450 pounds more Liz Mullen can be reached at lmullen@ than once, let alone four times.” Wirfs’ sportsbusinessjournal.com. Follow her on weight-lifting set an Iowa record.

Twitter @SBJLizMullen.

Blankenship set records of his own, in-

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

J A N U A R Y 27- F E B R U A R Y 2 , 2 02 0

|

15

PORTFOLIO A YEAR IN GHANA U.S. soccer exec finds success, corruption — and lifelong friends for his soccer club’s new training ground, Mark Noonan was loaded down. He had two bottles of peppermint schnapps and a case of beer. He carried two canvas bags filled with cash. And delivery of the deal’s final asset, a cow, was set for later. All were part of a routine transaction in Ghana.

Noonan, an American soccer and marketing executive, spent an eventful

BY BRET year in Ghana as the McCORMICK CEO of Hearts of Oak, the soccer-mad nation’s oldest and best supported club. Over 10 million people consider themselves fans of the country’s 20-time champions, nicknamed “The Phobians” because of the fear they strike in their opponents.

The training ground acquisition — consummated by several slugs from the schnapps bottle for each dignitary in attendance, along with traditional prayers and blessings, then more pulls from the bottle — “was the most interesting deal I’ve ever done,” Noonan said recently.

He made several other major commercial impacts on Hearts of Oak’s business during his short stint in Western Africa. But he ultimately stepped away from his g reat Ghanaian adventure f o r s eve r a l reasons, some of which he’ll explain publicly, and others that he won’t.

Chief among them were the corruption and lack of professionalization in the country’s soccer ecosystem.

“Everything that we could control went exceedingly well,” Noonan said.

“Everything that was beyond our control, that was more macro developing country issues, was like a perfect storm of a mess.”

o6KRFNHG DV ZHOO DV H[FLWHGp

A chance connection on LinkedIn

16

|

J A N UA R Y 2 7 - F E B R UA R Y 2 , 2 0 2 0

in 2017 led Noonan to a seat at a table across from Togbe Afede XIV, Hearts of Oak’s owner and one of the most powerful and wealthy tribal leaders in Ghana. The pair hit it off during a three-plus hour dinner at a midtown Manhattan hotel, and Afede suggested Noonan, whose experience includes running his own sports and entertainment agency (Focal Sports) and serving as CMO for U.S. Soccer, come to Ghana to run his club. Afede wasn’t kidding.

Both of Noonan’s daughters were in college and he and his wife, Katie, were empty nesters. After 20 years living in the New York area, “It was a time in our life where we could do something really interesting and make ourselves really uncomfortable, which is how you learn,” Noonan said.

By February 2018, Noonan and Katie were in Accra, the capital city of Ghana.

Noonan’s curiosity about Ghana was reciprocated.

“When his announcement was made and his CV and job experience was published, the whole Ghanaian football family was shocked as well as excited,” said Ghanaian journalist Saddick Adams. “The questions were, ‘How could such a top figure choose to come down here to work?’ and ‘What could have motivated him to make this choice?’”

Several cultural differences were immediately apparent. English is the official language of Ghana, but more than 250 languages and dialects are spoken there. Whenever businessmen didn’t want Noonan to know what they were saying, they seamlessly switched into one of the local dialects.

“Adapting to Ghanaian business is a challenge” and takes a long time, said Tom Vernon, an Englishman who runs a soccer academy in the country.

ABOVE: Mark Noonan and his wife, Katie (center), loved Ghana’s people and culture.

LEFT: Hearts of Oak faced Dreams FC in a friendly while the Ghana Premier League was suspended.

“In a high pressure environment like Hearts of Oak, this is even more challenging.”

It wasn’t easy for Noonan to blend in either. His Caucasian skin made him a minority for the first time in his life, and his job made him a nearinstant celebrity. Noonan quickly realized that anything he did, whether public or private, was watched, oftentimes by Ghanaian paparazzi.

“It was an amazing experience, knowing your every move was being watched,” he said. “At times, it was a huge pain in the ass.”

,PSDFWV

News coverage of Noonan was

largely positive, though. He quickly realized he would need to adapt to Ghanaian culture, not the other way around, and that helped him make a positive early impression after reaching an agreement for the training ground and landing the club an Umbro kit deal.

Noonan hired a technical director, Kim Grant, and tried, with the help of a 20-year-old American intern, Arik Rosenstein, to take a census of Hearts of Oak fans living in Ghana. Noonan also led a successful rebrand of the club, partnering with United Kingdom-based company teamup, led by Fred Popp, to redesign Hearts of Oak’s colorful but dated crest into a more

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

Photos courtesy of Mark Noonan (top) and @passionfc

O

N HIS WAY to close a land deal

SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

MARK NOONAN n AGE: 54 n EXPERIENCE: Focal Sports (his sports and entertainment agency), World Surf League (chief commercial officer), MLS/Soccer United Marketing (EVP, marketing), U.S. Soccer (chief marketing officer), Gatorade (director of integrated marketing), Advantage International (group director, corporate consulting). n CURRENTLY: Noonan is busy with several advisory roles, some of which are in soccer and all of which are in the sports industry. He’s also helping the city of Denver’s bid to win hosting rights for 2026 World Cup matches.

modern and succinct mark. The revamp was well-received by the rabid fan base.

“You’re taking an identity of a team that is so historic, so storied that it’s affected so many people,” said Rosenstein, an NYU student who spent the fall semester of 2018 in Ghana working under Noonan. “As someone from America, you’re trying to respectfully rebrand.

That’s a tough balance, and Mark did it excellently in my opinion.”

and skimming off the top pervades many aspects of daily life.

The president of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo, suspended the country’s top league, the national team and, with FIFA’s support, commenced a program to restart the sport from a

Photo courtesy of @passionfc

Corruption Noonan’s momentum abruptly ended when a documentary called “No. 12” aired to huge Accra crowds in mid-2018 and left Ghanaian soccer in ruins.

Using undercover cameras, a team of investigative journalDocumentary “No.12,” exposing Ghanaian ists filmed over 150 soccer refsoccer corruption, shut down the sport. erees and high-level soccer officials accepting bribes, including Kwesi Nyantakyi, the head blank slate. Noonan was named to a of Ghanaian football. He was caught national committee tasked with overon film piling a $65,000 bribe into a seeing the project. black plastic bag.

With the league canceled for the Many viewed Nyantakyi as a future year, Noonan faced a fight to keep his leader of the African confederation, club afloat. He says with pride that CAF. Instead, FIFA banned him from Hearts of Oak was the only Ghanaian soccer for life in October 2018, a shockclub that didn’t miss a payroll during ing result in a country where bribery the scandal and subsequent rebuild,

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

nearly impossible during the soccer impasse.

On Feb. 10, Noonan and Afede ate dinner with the Hearts of Oak team at Afede’s house. A few hours later, Noonan sat on a plane flying back to America.

Hearts of Oak administrators, players and even Noonan’s personal driver were unaware of Noonan’s departure, and it would be a few more weeks before it was clear that he wasn’t returning. He was told to keep his exit quiet to avoid destabilizing the club.

“On hindsight, it is a club known for reckless sacking of coaches and managing directors,” said Adams.

“Many have left the club under controversial and shocking circumstances, and Noonan’s exit is not an exception. No clear reasons were given for his departure.”

Noonan blamed factors that “were mostly bigger than a football club.”

“The reason why I went over there was to take a club and fulfill the promise of Ghana football,” he said. “I thought the conditions existed — we had a very powerful, well-financed owner, we had one of the most historic clubs not just in Ghana but in Noonan (right) made a strong first impression with Hearts of Oak fans by hiring Kim Grant as his technical director.

which greatly strained the country’s financially weak soccer structure. The Ghana Premier League lay dormant for nearly 600 days, only recently recommencing league play in late December.

‘Nobody gives you a playbook’ The job stress continually built and the death of youth player Moro Dungu didn’t help Noonan’s state of mind.

Dungu was a teenage soccer player on the verge of breaking into Hearts of Oak’s first team. He and Noonan developed a friendship, and Noonan and his wife decided to invite Dungu and several other youth team players to their apar tment for an American Thanksgiving dinner in 2018.

Dungu died that morning from an enlarged heart.

“This was a kid that was supposed to be sitting at my Thanksgiving dinner table,” said Noonan, who hosted the three other teens in his apartment that night so they could grieve together. “Nobody prepares you for it, nobody gives you a playbook.”

“Everything that we could control went exceedingly well.

Everything that was beyond our control ... was like a perfect storm of a mess.”

Unfulfilled promise When Noonan signed his three-year deal with Hearts of Oak in 2018, he insisted on including a one-year optout clause. In February 2019, Noonan decided to exercise the option and quietly told his boss, Afede.

In addition to the litany of obstacles in his daily work, living in the developing world had taken a toll on him and his wife and they missed American life. Ghanaian people were open-hearted and fun-loving and the country was fairly safe. But improving the club was

Africa, with a rabid fan base — I felt if we put the right systems and infrastructure around it, I thought we could not only win Africa, but be an incredibly successful financial club.”

Noonan couldn’t say goodbye personally to any of the people he had grown close to during his time at the club.

But he still keeps in touch with many of them through messaging apps.

“There are some things we have to change and I think Mark was going in the right direction but it was a frustrating time for all of us in Ghana,” Vernon said in a WhatsApp message. “Poor timing. I think he will be back one day.”

Vernon ended his message with a winking emoji.

J A N U A R Y 27- F E B R U A R Y 2 , 2 02 0

|

17

“The game changed in so many ways under David Stern’s leadership and vision.

He demanded the best of everyone because he gave it himself.”

KO B E B RYA N T

1942 - 2020

Stern Focus

After the death of longtime NBA commissioner DAVID STERN, the basketball and business communities paused to remember him

BY TED KEITH

NBAE / Getty Images

T

HE LIGHTS WENT DARK on Broadway. Players from Toronto

to Turkey observed a moment of silence. Legends gathered to honor him. Former presidents marked his passing.

Such was the impact David Joel Stern had on basketball, business and the world. When the longtime NBA commissioner died on Jan. 1 from a brain hemorrhage he had suffered less than three weeks earlier, he was hailed as the best commissioner in sports history and one of the most influential American executives in modern times. In the days that followed, arenas across the league that Stern had grown from an afterthought to a dominant part of the cultural landscape paid tribute to him, including at Barclays Center and Madison Square Garden in his native New York City.

NBA players donned black bands. His public memorial service,

held on Jan. 21 at Manhattan’s Radio City Music Hall, attracted more than 5,000 people, including luminaries such as Michael Jordan, and his family: his wife, Dianne, and his sons, Eric and Andrew.

At Sports Business Journal, we chronicled the back half of Stern’s tenure in full detail and kept a close eye on him even after he left the league, placing him on our cover just last October in a story that looked at his technology investment company, appropriately titled Micromanagement Ventures. When Stern retired from the NBA in 2014, SBJ devoted nearly an entire issue to his career. This special section includes submissions from that package, as well as original columns and, most notably, dozens of tributes that poured in from those who called him a boss, a colleague, a mentor or a friend. It is their way — and ours — of saying goodbye.

Barclays Center paid tribute to Stern on Jan. 4.

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

J A N U A R Y 27- F E B R U A R Y 2 , 2 02 0

|

19

DAVID STERN REFLECTIONS

Dear David: Telling the man what he meant to me M

David, As I write this, I’m praying for your recovery and hoping that sometime you will have the opportunity to read this.

You will probably never fully realize the impact you have had on my life. Giving me — an unknown commodity — the opportunity to leave UMass

20

|

J A N UA R Y 2 7 - F E B R UA R Y 2, 2 02 0

Stern ruled the NBA for 30 years, setting the standard for everything — even dress codes.

and work for you on my sabbatical was a lifechanger. During my time with you I learned that even though I was an academic — that my instincts and ideas were on-point — learning how to present those ideas to you was a process that still impacts to me to this day. When I began working for you — you were a WHY person — teaching me how to make a thorough and professional argument for your review and consideration.

After that initial year when I had earned your respect and trust you became a WHY NOT boss — allowing me to test and try a number of practices that are still in place today.

I grew up with a father who didn’t really accomplish much in life — he was a good man, but always a dreamer who rarely followed through on anything — he talked a great game but that was really the extent of it. Thus, I have lived my life making sure that I always followed through and made my dreams a reality. Working for you was a dream — but even more than that it provided me with a father-figure and a mentor who always delivered on his dreams with much more at stake than anything I could ever have imagined. Working with you to build TMBO, creating regional and topical workshops, designing and implementing the NBA Job Fair and convincing you to initiate the Stern Safaris were all ideas that never happen without your trust and encouragement.

When I left the NBA — really it was a combi-

nation of the travel and missing the day to day working with students — I was a significantly better professor than I ever thought I could be — and that is attributable in large part to you. As you taught me accountability — I instilled that in my students as well. I also started off as a WHY professor and become a WHY NOT professor after they proved themselves. I also had a better understanding of the industry and the skills necessary for a successful career and I have placed hundreds of young men and women into the industry — including the NBA and its teams.

There were a number of other things I learned from you. You taught me “tough love” — although you could be caustic at times and sometimes very angry — I knew that beneath that facade that there was affection and love. I learned how to deliver bad news and I learned the importance of never putting your boss in a situation for which he was unprepared or surprised.

On the lighter side, I learned the difference between business casual and BBQ casual when dressing on casual Fridays.

I treasure our friendship and the mentoring I receive from you — in exchange for the gourmet cookies I begin searching for every November to surprise you — and although you protest every time I show up with them — I know you enjoy them and our conversations.

In your career you have demonstrated that anything is possible — from taking a league whose playoffs and finals were on tape delay into arguably the most progressive, innovative and global league on the planet. But personally, your biggest accomplishment was helping develop a somewhat naive college professor into a widely acclaimed sport marketing expert.

I’ll always appreciate the opportunity and treasure the friendship.

Fondly and with much love, Bill Bill Sutton is a former NBA marketing executive and is now the dean of Elevate Academy.

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

Getty Images

Y EMOTIONS have run the gamut since I learned of David Stern’s hospitalization last month and then his death, on Jan. 1 from a brain hemorrhage. I have laughed and cried while sharing memories and stories with my NBA family members.

My experience with Stern dates to 1998. I wrote him a letter asking him if I could spend my sabbatical from UMass, where I was a professor of sport marketing and the graduate program director, working for him. In that letter I had suggested some

BY BILL issues that I felt existed in the SUTTON NBA and intimated that I would like to help him solve them.

Upon receipt of the letter David called my home in Amherst, Mass., I wasn’t there, so he talked with my wife, Sharon, and asked her if she found me to be funny.

So when I went to his office the following week, I was uncertain as to what to expect. He greeted me by saying “Hello, Professor,” with a certain amount of curiosity and sarcasm.

He asked: “Do you know what my job is?” I hemmed and hawed before he answered his own question, describing himself as an investment banker with 30 clients and being charged with increasing the value of their investments.

For some reason he agreed to bring me on board.

David and I were painfully honest with each other. I tried to share the things I was learning and give him some insight about how the teams felt about the league office. That led to our initial discussions about what would later become Team Marketing and Business Operations (TMBO).

I learned lessons, too, some more lighthearted than others. At first I was unfamiliar with the dress code at the league office. Friday was business casual and my initial interpretation was a Nat Nast shirt and khakis. When I came into his office he asked me why I was dressed like that. I replied, “Because it’s Business Casual Friday.” He smirked like only he could, shook his head and said, “It’s BUSINESS casual, not BBQ casual.” When I left the NBA I wore the same shirt to my party and bought David the ugliest Hawaiian shirt I could find and gave it to him. He wore it and posed for a photo with me that I treasure.

Shortly after he had been hospitalized, and not knowing if he would ever be able to see it, I sent him the following email. I share it now exactly as it was sent — mistakes and all — to David and the angel that worked with him for so many years, Linda Tosi.

SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

ing Stern at last week’s memorial. “But in just a few years there, he went from being the best lawyer at the NBA to being the best marketer at the NBA to being the best media expert at the NBA. It was all self-taught.”

“Marketing was natural to his personality,” said Russ Granik, who spent 22 years as the NBA’s deputy commissioner. “I don’t want to denigrate his abilities as a litigator, but he Stern and top really was a natural salesman. He’d walk lieutenants like Russ Granik into a room, light it up, and begin talking (middle) and Rick to anyone.”

Welts charted the Former CBS Sports President Neal Pilson, path for the NBA who knew Stern for 40 years, said that while during the 1980s. much of the late commissioner’s penchant for marketing was instinctual, “he was also able to see the logic of marketing. Good lawyers are salesmen and persuaders. They sell their clients and their point of view, based on marshaling their evidence — that’s what he was so good at.”

If marketing is listening to customers and giving them what they want, then Stern learned those skills early in life at his family’s deli in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. “I always believed,” said his son Eric, “that working behind the counter for all those years shaped his view of the world.”

“David Stern’s marketing was intuitive and maybe that originated from trying to sell customers that extra pastrami sandwich,” laughed Alan Rothenberg, who sparred with Stern while representing both Lakers owner Jack Kent Cooke and Donald Sterling, who defied Stern by moving the Clippers franchise from San Diego to Los Angeles in 1984.

Rothenberg recalled that he was originally hired

by Sterling because of a recommendation by none T WAS SOMETIME in the mid-1990s and we’d just described David Stern in other than ... Stern. “He had an ability to relate to print as “sports’ leading micro-manager.” A day or two after that was anyone,” said Rothenberg. “His rapport with the published, we sat next to the NBA commissioner at an industry lunch. players was genuine.’’

Before unfolding his napkin, he asked, not quietly, “How could you describe Former Anheuser-Busch sports chief Tony Ponme that way? What will people in this business think?” turo had decades of experience with those who are Intimidating? Yes — but then Stern turned to the other league executives at marketers by training and trade, yet he called Stern the table. “Heidi, you can eat your roll now,’’ he said, grinning at Heidi Ueber“the ultimate brand manager … Sports are a peopleroth, then heading NBA marketing partnerships. “Scott, it’s OK to start your connection business,” Ponturo said. “David Stern salad,” he ordered Scott O’Neill, now president of the parent for the Philadelphia knew that better than anyone.”

76ers and New Jersey Devils. He’d reverted to Stern the schmoozer.

If marketing is persuasion, then Stern had that When someone dies, it’s natural to think of something you forgot to say or ability in abundance. “He’d call you up, tell you in do. In the case of David Stern, we’d long meant to ask how he transformed no uncertain terms what you did wrong, and then himself from Stern the acerbic, quick-witted litigator, to Stern the marketing cajole you into doing something else he wanted god. Surely, he had no formal training as a marketer. Yet having steered a done,’’ said David Falk, the renowned agent for league with a handful of teams near bankruptcy and considered on a par with Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing and dozens of other the NHL to one with an enviable global position and $9 billion in revenue, he’s high-profile NBA players. “And somehow, you felt now lauded as a marketing genius. When and how did all that marketing acubetter when it was over.” men emerge from a man described at his recent memorial in New York as a And if marketing is vision, knowing equally well “recovering antitrust lawyer”? how businesses fit together now and how they will Even those who knew Stern in his early years didn’t recognize some sides years later, Stern also had that sort of prescience. he displayed as commissioner. Howard Ganza, a classmate of Stern’s at Co“No one had a better crystal ball,” said jazz trumlumbia Law School and later a partner at Proskauer, recalls dozing off in a peter Wynton Marsalis at the memorial service.

Mississippi hotel room before being awakened by a familiar voice on TV. It As for micro managing? Seems like Stern grew was the newly appointed Commissioner Stern, a man obsessed with precision more comfortable with the description. He called and detail, hyping the league with the softest of measures. his recent tech consultancy “Micromanagement “Fan devotion, excitement, state of of play — every immeasurable quality Ventures.” of the NBA was WAY up, according to him,” said Ganz with a laugh. “That As former NBA CMO and current Golden State was a David Stern I didn’t know.”

Warriors President and COO Rick Welts put it, “he Along with his legendary work ethic, Stern was an information sponge. You had a gift for making all of us feel like we had a knew he would read whatever you wrote, because he read everything, long unique relationship with him.” before the internet simplified that. Stern was the proverbial “smartest guy For a litigator, the guy was quite a marketer. in the room” almost by sheer will, with an underappreciated ability to listen Or maybe in spite of that. and synthesize.

Terry Lefton can be reached at “All of us at Proskauer told him he was crazy to leave,” said Michael Cartlefton@sportsbusinessjournal.com. dozo, another Columbia Law classmate and Proskauer partner, while eulogiz-

Industry heavyweights honor marketing maestro

I

Getty Images

BY TERRY LEFTON

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

J A N U A R Y 27- F E B R U A R Y 2 , 2 02 0

|

21

David Stern took over a fringe league and turned it into a model for modern sports. BY JOHN LOMBARDO This story originally ran in the Jan. 6, 2020, issue of Sports Business Journal.

W

HEN JOE LECCESE was named chairman

of Proskauer law firm in late 2010, partly as the result of decades of success in which he had worked closely with NBA commissioner and former Proskauer laywer David Stern, he went to Stern’s office on Fifth Avenue to share the news with him personally. After 30 minutes, Stern offered Leccese his secret to leadership. Expecting a treatise from the wise commissioner, what Leccese got instead was more like a haiku.

“He said, ‘Democracy bad, dictatorship good,’ and he got up and left the room,” Leccese said.

Stern wasn’t always so brief in his remarks, but as a hard-driving perfectionist with a demanding professional style, he often lived up to his top-down management philosophy.

Still, after he passed away on Jan. 1 at age 77 from a brain hemorrhage he’d suffered on Dec. 12, the tributes that poured in made it clear that Stern the person would be remembered as fondly as Stern the commissioner. Gary Stevenson, now the deputy commissioner of MLS and previously the president of NBA Properties, remembers taking his three small children to meet Stern in the mid-1990s.

He told them to address Stern as “Commissioner” or “Mr.,” which they did. Stern, though, didn’t mind and he told the children, “Just call me Dave.”

“A week later at the dinner table, my youngest son said, ‘So, how’s my friend Dave doing?’” re-

22

|

J A N UA R Y 27- F E B R UA R Y 2, 2 020

members Stevenson. “I said, ‘Dave, who?’ He said, ‘You know, Dave, my friend at your office.’ I said, ‘You mean Commissioner Stern?’ He said, ‘Yeah, but he told me to call him Dave.’ I told David that story, and he loved it. For the next 25 years, every time I saw him, he would end it by saying, ‘Tell the boys their friend Dave said hello.’”

To most people who crossed paths with Stern during his 30 years atop the NBA, he could be a good friend, a tough boss and a valuable mentor.

He was also a visionary and an innovator. And he may have been the greatest commissioner in sports history, taking the NBA from a fringe sport to a billion-dollar global property.

“He was the driving force for making the NBA what it became,” said Jerry Colangelo, former Phoenix Suns owner and past chairman of the NBA’s board of governors. “The job he did was off the charts in terms of the growth and development of the NBA.” Stern joined the NBA as general counsel in 1978, and when he took over as commissioner at age 41 in 1984, the league was still a struggling entity, with many of its teams playing in half-empty arenas and Finals games that just a few years before had aired on tape delay. League revenue was a paltry $165 million, the league had just 23 teams and its TV rights deal was for an average of $28 million annually.

By the time he retired in 2014, there were 30 teams — plus the WNBA and a developmental league — TV rights were going for $930 million annually and league revenue had grown to nearly $5 billion.

“I don’t think David made any secrets of his vi-

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

Getty Images

DAVID STERN HIS LIFE

The Ultimate Commissioner

sions,” said Leccese. “He wanted to build the NBA into a global and media entertainment company.”

Those days must have seemed far away when Stern and a handful of the league’s sponsors held their first meeting together in 1985. Former Gatorade sports marketing head Bill Schmidt remembers that his company was joined by American Airlines, Schick and Spalding. “It was a time when no one much was watching the NBA on television,” said Schmidt. “He stood up and said, ‘We’re going to build this league and we need your help to do it.’”

Ten years later, that same meeting featured dozens of Stern became so sponsors and required a hotel well-known that with more than 1,000 rooms for some he was as synonymous to accommodate everyone. with basketball “He was a great negotiator as legends like who would roll up his sleeves Michael Jordan. and relish the challenge and fight just as hard on a $5,000 deal as a $50 million deal,” said John Slusher, executive vice president of global sports marketing for Nike. “I’m not sure where we would be today, in either the U.S. or in Europe or Asia, without the NBA’s huge strides and David Stern was obviously the force behind that.”

“He very much was driven to get as close to perfection in terms of performance as possible,” said former NBA Deputy Commissioner Russ Granik.

“But he also was a teacher. His attitude was you couldn’t back down from anyone and exist in the league office. While the teams were the clients, you couldn’t let them push you around in thinking what was best for the league. For most of my tenure, we tried to get out of problems. It was only after a certain period of time could we focus on building instead of problem solving.”

Other commissioners watched with keen interest as Stern revolutionized the NBA’s brand. According to former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, among Stern’s long list of accomplishments was his early recognition in the global interest in sports and developing many initiatives including the WNBA, implementing with the National Basketball Players Association the first collective-bargaining agreement with free agency and a salary cap, and “persuading the owners and their teams to recognize the power of league-centric programs, the league’s brand, and leaguewide standards of business operations and fan service.”

The upper echelons of sports business are heavily populated by those who worked under Stern and succeeded under his intense style. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman was a key Stern ally during his days as NBA general counsel. Big East Commissioner Val Ackerman was tapped by Stern to be the first president of the WNBA. Scott O’Neil is now the CEO of Harris Blitzer Sports and Entertainment. Each took the lessons learned under Stern to their new roles.

“The way he was able to deal with the people who worked for him always brought out the best in them,” said Bettman. “He might make people feel uncomfortable, but the end result was always better work.

He was very focused and very intense, all as a methodology for getting the best out of people.”

“He turned the NBA into something more than a sports league,” said Ackerman. “It was about sports and society. It was about advancing women. It was about being in front of the curve in technology. He knitted it all together in ways that broke the mold.”

SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

“Every flight I’d get on with him, he would have stacks of papers nine inches thick and he’s reading and he’d love to debate and discuss and not just the sports pages,” said O’Neil, formerly a senior vice president at the league. “He was very much in tune to the geopolitical landscape. He was very connected to the business world, and he was way ahead of his time when we needed it. It wasn’t a coincidence that he had an office in China in the 1980s. It wasn’t an accident when Magic was diagnosed with HIV and he understood the disease on a level that most people didn’t.”

Indeed, Stern knew well that basketball was a way to influence society beyond sports. His support of Johnson helped advance the acceptance of people with HIV. He created the WNBA in 1996, and he crafted the NBA Cares charitable organization in 2005.

“There is more than enough data to prove that David was not only the greatest commissioner in sports history, but also one of the most influential CEOs in any industry, ever,” said Chris Granger, who ran the league’s team marketing and business operations division and worked as president of the Sacramento Kings from 2013 to 2017 before leaving

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

“

DAVID UNDERSTOOD LIKE NO OTHER THE ROLE OF SPORT, AND BASKETBALL IN PARTICULAR, IN CHANGING THE WORLD FOR THE BETTER.

”

the league to work as group president for sports and entertainment for Ilitch Holdings. “I could also make the case that his impact on society was even greater. David understood like no other, the role of sport, and basketball in particular, in changing the world for the better.”

The league was not immune to challenges and negative publicity. A lockout canceled significant portions of the 199899 and 2011-12 seasons. The 2004 Malice at the Palace, in which Stern levied the heaviest suspensions in NBA history, shined a spotlight on the disconnect between players and fans. There was the gambling scandal of NBA referee Tim Donaghy, the poorly received dress code for players and even the misfire of a new synthetic ball in 2006. Yet Stern was always willing to lead the way with firm and decisive action.

“Success never comes as a straight line,” said Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.

“But it never comes at all if you can’t address the lowest and most difficult problems that present themselves. David’s legacy isn’t just that he made basketball a global, successful sport; it’s that he loved the league so much that he never backed away from any problem it faced. Every issue, every problem, was his problem. That’s what made him special as commissioner.”

It didn’t hurt that he had the benefit of a line of hugely popular players to serve as ambassadors for the league. From Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, to Michael Jordan and Shaquille O’Neal, to Kobe Bryant and LeBron James, Stern never forgot that the players were the ones who were the faces of the league.

That didn’t stop him from becoming almost as recognizable. While growing up in Trinidad, Davyeon Ross thought of three people who epitomized basketball: Magic, Michael and David Stern. Later, as the cofounder of ShotTracker, he would work closely with Stern, internalizing the lessons he taught. “I’ve been in so many discussions with him late night, via text message. We used to talk all the time. I’m going to miss him.”

Not long before Stern fell ill, he had lunch in New York with former lieutenant Rick Welts, now the COO of the Golden State Warriors. Their relationship dated back decades and their conversations typically covered all sorts of territory. That day, Welts made sure to say something else.

“I told him that I loved him — I don’t think I ever did that before,” he said. “I’m glad I did.”

Additional reporting by Mark J. Burns and Eric Prisbell.

J A N U A R Y 27- F E B R U A R Y 2 , 2 02 0

|

23

D

BY LIZ MULLEN

Lisa Leslie (left) starred in the early days of the WNBA, which was run by Val Ackerman.

AVID STERN will always be remem-

bered in part for launching the WNBA, but the late commissioner did more for women than just start a new professional basketball league. He also helped countless women off the court by hiring, mentoring and promoting them.

“He opened doors,” said Val Ackerman, former president of the WNBA. “And that was significant because there was a time … when there weren’t many women working at higher levels of sports organizations.

And frankly, there weren’t a lot at the middle level, either.”

Ackerman is now commissioner of the Big East Conference, a position she has held since 2013. In addition to serving as WNBA president from its inception in 1996 to 2005, she was a special assistant to Stern.

She started at the NBA in 1988 as a young lawyer and at the time, there were not a lot of women there. But that quickly changed.

In the 1996-97 NBA season, 46 percent of the professional positions in the league office were held by women, compared to 22 percent at the NFL, according to Richard Lapchick, director of The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida, which produces a report card on racial and gender hiring in collegiate and professional sports.

“In writing the annual NBA Racial and Gender Report Card, it was obvious that the NBA, under the leadership of David Stern, created more opportunities for

women than any other men’s professional sport,” Lapchick said. “The NBA is the only men’s league to have ever gotten an A for gender hiring.”

Women who worked for Stern and went on to do other things said he helped them in their careers.

Chrysa Chin worked for more than 17 years at the NBA before leaving in December 2014. She now works as executive vice president, strategic engagement and development, at the National Basketball Players Association.

Chin said Stern mentored, supported and promoted her. Chin remembers, years ago, having to meet with a head of an organization who had a reputation for being harsh, and Stern asked her to come to his office before she left for the meeting. “He wanted to make sure that I was prepared,” Chin recalls. “He said, ‘Do not to tolerate any disrespect and do not allow him to

push you around.

You don’t work for him!’”

Women interviewed about Stern said he alw ay s e x p e c t e d them to work as hard as their male counterparts, but he also gave them the same respect and authority.

“He was a tough boss,” Ackerman said. “He was as tough on us as he was on the guys.”

Ackerman said one of the reasons he hired and promoted women is that he really liked and respected them, but he also did it because he was a visionary. “Most of all, he had a grasp — before anyone else — of where the winds were blowing in the social trends,” Ackerman said.

Ackerman said Stern used to joke that the business plan for the WNBA was in his desk drawer when he started as commissioner in 1984, but he definitely was talking about it as far back as 1990. When naysayers came out, Stern was ready. “He was our biggest champion,” Ackerman said. “Nobody pushed him around. WNBA critics were sort of top of list of people he fought off at every turn. He was our biggest defender.”

Liz Mullen can be reached at lmullen@ sportsbusinessjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter @SBJLizMullen.

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF DAVID STERN AND THE NBA HE SHAPED

September 22, 1942 n David Joel Stern is born in New York, N.Y.

1963 n Receives bachelor of arts in history from Rutgers; graduates from Columbia Law School in 1966.

1967 n At Proskauer Rose, begins working with the league as an outside counsel.

1978 n Leaves Proskauer Rose and becomes the NBA’s first general counsel.

1987 n League grants expansion franchises to Charlotte, Miami, Minneapolis and Orlando. n NBA and Turner agree to a two-year, $50 million extension.

1989 n League signs a four-year, $600 million contract with NBC and announces a fouryear, $275 million renewal with TNT.

1992 n U.S. Olympic “Dream Team” features NBA stars for the first time and wins the gold medal in Barcelona.

1984

1993

n Named commissioner, succeeding Larry O’Brien. n League signs a two-year, $20 million broadcast deal with TBS for cable broadcasting rights.

n NBC signs a four-year extension of its contract for $750 million; Turner Sports agrees to a four-year extension of its cable TV contract, worth more than $350 million.

1985 n NBA and CBS agree on a new four-year television contract worth $173 million. n NBA signs a two-year, $25 million deal with TBS.

1995 n NBA.com launches n NBA board of governors reveals the creation of the WNBA, to begin play in 1997.

1997 n League announces new four-year deals

24

|

J A N UA R Y 27- F E B R UA R Y 2, 202 0

with NBC and Turner worth more than $2.6 billion.

1998

reached that includes a higher age limit for players entering the league n A controversial dress code is introduced for players.

n NBA cancels the first two weeks of the 1998-99 season because of stalled labor talks.

2007

1999 n New six-year CBA ends the first regularseason work stoppage in NBA history. n NBA becomes the first league to launch its own network, NBA.com TV (now NBA TV).

2000 n Basketball Without Borders begins n NBA Development League begins

2002 n NBA reaches six-year deals, totaling $4.6 billion, with ABC/ESPN and Turner, starting with the 2002-03 season.

2004 n A fight between players and fans during a Pistons-Pacers game at Detroit results in Stern handing out several suspensions.

2005 n A new six-year labor agreement is

n NBA announces eight-year media rights renewals with Turner and ESPN/ABC valued at $930 million annually. n Former NBA referee Tim Donaghy pleads guilty to two felonies stemming from his involvement in advising professional gamblers on NBA games.

2011 n CBA expires and forces the fourth lockout in NBA history. The lockout ends Dec. 8, 2011 with a new 10-year agreement.

2014 n Stern steps down as commissioner. n Inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.

January 1, 2020 n Dies from a brain hemorrhage at the age of 77.

Source: Sports Business Journal research

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

NBAE / Getty Images

DAVID STERN REFLECTIONS

Commissioner did more for women than just start WNBA

FO L L OW YO U R D R E A M S AND MAKE THE MOST O F E V E RY E X P E R I E N C E DAVID STERN

From everyone at American Express, we extend our deepest condolences to the family and friends of the late David Stern. David’s commitment to excellence, along with his extraordinary vision and entrepreneurial spirit, transformed the business of the NBA and the sport of basketball forever. He will be remembered for his exemplary leadership and fearlessness that set the standard for innovation and reinvention – something we were lucky enough to experience firsthand. We thank you, David, for setting the bar so high. Your legacy and impact will be felt by our organization for many years to come.

this only once, are you?’”

A half-hour later, Ebersol got an answer.

“I talked to Bob Wright, who was running NBC IT WAS AFTER the first game of the first NBA Finals at the time. He heartily concurred with me that we of the first season of NBC’s partnership with the should do it. So I called [Stern] back, and he got it.

NBA when Dick Ebersol discovered that he wasn’t “That’s the difference between a lot of people in dealing with any ordinary executive in David Stern. the world who would have said, ‘Wow, that’s fanEbersol, then chairman of NBC Sports, was overtastic. We finally are going to have the whole Finals seeing the network’s coverage in 1991, in prime time.’ Not with David.” which featured a dream matchup between It is that vision, along with his razorBY JOHN the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls and sharp instincts and relentless manageLOMBARDO Magic Johnson’s Los Angeles Lakers. ment style, that allowed Stern over the Before the network’s alignment with course of his 30-year commissionership the NBA, the majority of NBA Finals to take the league from a fringe sport in games were jammed into weekend daytime windows the early 1980s to the global property it is today. or worse, on tape delay in the early 1980s.

Consider a meeting in the early 1990s that inStern wanted more games in prime time. Ebersol cluded Stern, Portland Trail Blazers owner and figured he had a plan to satisfy the commissioner, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, and then-NBA and called to share it with him after Los Angeles marketing executive Rick Welts. won the series opener on a Sunday afternoon in Allen went to brief Stern about his plans to use Chicago. an emerging technology called the internet to help “I said, ‘Listen, I’ve been able to convince NBC market the Blazers. Stern figured it might be worth to put the rest of the games in these Finals — all listening to the guy who helped invent operating of them — on in prime time,’” Ebersol said. “The systems for personal computers. first words out of his mouth were, ‘That’s great.’

“Paul told us he was going to have this thing called His second thing was, ‘You’re not thinking of doing a website for the Blazers while explaining that it

A version of this story originally appeared in the Jan. 20, 2014, issue of Sports Business Journal.

would be a big deal,” said Welts, who is now president and COO of the Golden State Warriors.

After listening to the presentation, Stern stopped Allen over the idea that NBA teams would have independent internet operations. A better idea, Stern insisted, was to centralize the league’s yetundeveloped digital business.

NBAE / Getty Images

DAVID STERN LEGACY

Prime-Time Player: Stern’s vision vaulted his league to new heights

26

|

J A N UA R Y 27- F E B R UA R Y 2, 2 020

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

Stern knew his league was poised to take a major leap when he partnered with Dick Ebersol (second from right) and NBC starting with the 1990-91 season.

“David said, ‘No, you are not going to do t h a t , ’ ” We l t s said. “Here is the guy who invented the computer and David is telling him what he isn’t going to do. At the time, David wasn’t at the cutting edge of the user experience, but somehow he had this crazy ability to see the long-term impact of innovation.”

But to Stern, execution and a zealous devotion to detail were just as vital as his vision in running the NBA. “He taught me to always look at the big picture and see where the world is going and define creative ways to meet rather than change it,” said NBA Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver, who takes over for Stern in February.

“At the same time, he also taught that it’s not enough to just have a bold vision. You need a constant focus on so-called execution and detail to realize that vision.”

When Stern was named commissioner in 1984 at the age of 41, the league had $165 million in revenue.

The NBA this year expects $5.5 billion in annual

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

revenue.

“He was determined to bring what was a secondclass sport into a world-class sport,” said Chicago Bulls Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf. “You have to give him the majority share of the credit.”

Stern pushed the NBA into new media deals, created new licensing and marketing strategies, negotiated new labor contracts, led franchise expansion, and broke ground for international growth, all the while creating a new job description for a modern-day big league commissioner.

“David had to, and was able to, deal with the complexities of antitrust laws, labor laws, media rights, being the first league to have a drug agreement, and of marketing a sport with a brand that at the time he came on was perceived as being difficult to take to mainstream America,” said Gary Bettman, who spent 12 years working with Stern at the NBA before becoming commissioner of the NHL. “He helped create a licensed product business before there was much of one. He brought all that together, and he was the first to do that whole package.

So I would say that David is the whole package and that is what a commissioner in this time had to become, particularly in this era of expansion internationally and onto digital media platforms — both of which didn’t even exist when he came in.”

So strong was Stern’s leadership that rarely did owners contest any of his initiatives.

“Whatever David wanted to get done, got done,” said former 76ers co-owner Pat Croce of the owners

meetings he attended. “He really cares about fans, too, and will get really radical with owners when he thinks the fans are getting shafted.”

But along with the success were controversies and criticism that challenged Stern throughout his tenure, from conspiracy theorists who thought the NBA’s first draft lottery in 1985 was rigged to ensure college superstar Patrick Ewing went to the bigmarket New York Knicks, to the institution of an age limit for NBA prospects in 2005.

“He never hid during a crisis,” said Terry Lyons, a former senior NBA executive. “It was always, ‘Deal with it, tell the truth and move on.’ That was in his DNA. He always said to us, ‘You’d better answer the phone when there’s a problem, if you want them to pick up the phone when things are good.’”

Bluster and calculated intimidation were part of the delivery. Stern could be irascible with both the media and league partners, but he was always willing to listen to other ideas.

“He could have run any business, and he’s one of the few people in sports I would say that about,” said Paul Fireman, Reebok founder.

Indeed, those who worked closest with him know Stern’s legacy goes far beyond the league’s headquarters. Said Silver, “David has not only been one of the great commissioners of all time, but by any measure, he is one of the top CEOs in modern business history.”

Staff writers Terry Lefton and John Ourand contributed to this report.

J A N U A R Y 27- F E B R U A R Y 2 , 2 02 0

|

27

Quarters

Tracing the highs and lows of the NBA from 1984 to 2014.

BY JOHN LOMBARDO

A version of this story originally ran in the Jan. 20, 2014, issue of Sports Business Journal.

The Dream Team was a dream come true for Stern.

1

2

nd

1984-1992

1992-1999

When David Stern replaced Larry O’Brien as NBA commissioner on Feb. 1, 1984, he knew that massive changes were needed to grow a league that was suffering from an unfair image problem.

“It was that the league was too black, everyone was on drugs and everyone made too much money,” said Steve Mills, who spent 16 years working for Stern at the NBA and is now president of the New York Knicks.

“There was baseball and the NFL, and the NBA was not in the same league.”

Stern had played a key role in negotiating the league’s first salary cap, which was instituted in 1984 and initially set at $3.6 million for each team. At the same time, the NBA instituted a drug-testing program designed to improve the player image issue, and the league rallied its marketing forces behind star players such as Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Michael Jordan.

New television deals also helped. In 1984 the league signed the NBA’s first deal with TBS, a two-year, $20 million agreement, and the next year it added a four-year, $173 million network deal with CBS. In 1989, Stern negotiated a new four-year, $275 million deal with Turner and a four-year, $600 million deal with NBC. Stern’s early tenure also brought new markets. The Clippers moved from San Diego to Los Angeles and the Kings went from Kansas City to Sacramento. The NBA expanded to Charlotte, Miami, Minnesota and Orlando.

Stern then began laying the groundwork for his global vision for the league, playing a major role in getting NBA players to participate in the Olympics. The crowning moment came in 1992 with the “Dream Team,” a collection of NBA superstars who captured the gold medal at the Barcelona Games.

It was a period of exponential growth for the NBA. In 1998 Stern secured a four-year, $840 million TV deal with Turner and a four-year, $1.6 billion deal with NBC. The league launched NBA.com, becoming the first league to integrate team and league websites into a single network, and NBA TV, the first of the league-run cable networks.

In 1995, the league expanded to 29 teams with the addition of the Toronto Raptors and the Vancouver Grizzlies, each of which paid a then-record $125 million expansion fee. Two years later, Stern fulfilled his commitment to helping women’s basketball by creating the WNBA, which started as an eight-team league.

Not everything was easy, however. In 1995 the league experienced its first lockout, though no games were missed. Then came a damaging labor battle in 1998, which resulted in a lockout that resulted in an abbreviated, 50-game regular season.

“David was very tough,” said former Cleveland Cavaliers owner Gordon Gund. “He was able to push far enough but not too far.”

Getty Images

DAVID STERN HIS TENURE

FOUR

st

28

|

J A N UA R Y 27- F E B R UA R Y 2, 2 020

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

3

4

AP Images; Getty Images

RD

TH

1999-2007

2007-2014

With the league’s image stung by the lockout — and by the second retirement of Michael Jordan, who walked away after leading the Chicago Bulls to their sixth title in eight years in 1998 — Stern set his sights on new initiatives. The league created the Basketball Without Borders program and also its league-run minor league, the eight-team NBDL, which debuted in the 2001-02 season. That same year, the NBA relocated the troubled Vancouver Grizzlies to Memphis, and three years later it put an expansion team in Charlotte, two years after the original Hornets had moved to New Orleans.

There was another big change for the league as it signed a new TV deal not with NBC but with ESPN/ABC, for six years and $2.4 billion. The NBA signed a $2.2 billion deal with Turner that put more games on cable and shifted the NBA All-Star Game off network television to TBS. This era also had some notable difficulties. The most infamous was 2004 brawl between the Indiana Pacers and Detroit Pistons, which spilled into the stands and brought a black eye to the league. Stern responded by suspending nine players involved in the fight.

Aiming to improve the league’s image, Stern instituted a dress code for players. He also pushed through a minimum age limit requiring players to be at least 19 years old and at least one year removed from high school in order to be eligible for the draft. A gambling scandal also rocked the NBA after veteran referee Tim Donaghy admitted that he passed inside information to gamblers.

Stern navigated the league out of its troubles with an eye on international growth and on the league’s newfound charitable mission. It had rolled out its NBA Cares program in 2005 with a $100 million commitment to fund outreach programs including health, family and education projects. In January 2008, Stern executed his vision for an international league with the creation of the NBA China entity.

The venture kicked off an aggressive strategy of global growth that included the opening of 14 international offices that now employ some 300 people. The NBA now broadcasts games in more than 215 countries. Regular-season games were played in London and Mexico and a beefed up preseason slate meant 146 games have been played overseas. That global reach helped to boost overall league revenue, which is expected to reach $5.5 billion this season.

“The single thing was the globalization of the brand and the game, and he will be remembered for that more than anything else,” said Micky Arison, owner of the Miami Heat.

The game’s growth caused a run-up of franchise values. In 2010 the Golden State Warriors sold for $450 million, a record at the time. But the most eye-popping deal was the $535 million sale of the small-market Sacramento Kings in 2013.

This final period of Stern’s tenure has not been without labor strife. A 2011 lockout, the fourth under his stewardship, forced a shortened 66-game season but it also brought a 10-year labor deal and a new revenue-sharing system designed to aid low-revenue teams.

Stern’s look wasn’t all that changed between the tenures of Larry O’Brien (top) and Adam Silver.

We are Forever Grateful for Your Partnership, Leadership and Friendship.

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

J A N U A R Y 27- F E B R U A R Y 2 , 2 02 0

|

29

Ski AuStin

RETIRED NBA EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, EVENTS AND ATTRACTIONS GROUP My first experience with David came in June of 1989, when we had “The Season’s Finally Over” cruise around New York on a World Yacht ship.

When the T-shirts arrived with the name of the party, the apostrophe was missing and they read, “The Seasons Finally Over.” I, of course, couldn’t hand those out and had the boxes returned to my office on the day of the cruise.

The cruise was great, and at the end of the night, as everyone had departed the ship, only David, Dianne (right) and I remained on board. As twilight was approaching, David said to me, “This was great. A perfect night. I give it about a 95%.” Then he and Dianne began to walk down the gangplank.

Halfway down, he stopped, turned back toward me and waited until our eyes met. Quietly, he added, “...but at the NBA, we do things 100%” and continued down the gangplank.

A lot has been said about David’s ability to criticize, embarrass, or intimidate people. But everything he ever did over the 25 years we were together was borne out of his passion for the NBA and his relentless pursuit of perfection.

Sure, he yelled a lot and at a lot of people over the years. But he also could quietly make the same point, as he did that night. And ever since then, I tried to do everything 100%. RIP, David.

MAJOR LEAGUE LACROSSE COMMISSIONER; FORMER NBA TELEVISION SALES MANAGER He always said knowledge is power, and he’d stop by and bark, “Brown! How many television households are there in Uzbekistan?” And I had to have the answer, and I had it. I had seen the wrath and I was not going to get caught.

When ESPN began speaking with me about going to Asia to run their business, I told David.

Unbeknownst to me, he called Steve Bornstein to offer his endorsement. I know this was critical in me getting hired. He also told me, after the fact, that when ESPN told him what they wanted to pay me, he told them they needed to pay me more, and in his words, “negotiated my deal for me.”

Candidly, whether that was true or not, I do not know (I suspect it was), but it sure made me feel good.

Gatty Images

DAVID STERN TRIBUTES

PAYING THEIR RESPECTS

SAndy Brown

30

|

J A N UA R Y 27- F E B R UA R Y 2, 2020

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

Kerry Chandler

ENDEAVOR CHIEF HUMAN RESOURCES OFFICER; FORMER CHRO OFFICER, NBA I reported to David from October 2007 to January 2014, as the CHRO and am so grateful for all that I learned from him. We remained close until he passed and I join so many in calling him a mentor and a friend. Since leaving the NBA, I’ve been the CHRO at Christie’s, Under Armour and now Endeavor — and I take with me every day all of the professional and life lessons I learned from David.

donald dell

LONGTIME SPORTS MARKETER AND AGENT, FOUNDER OF PROSERV He had this great understanding of human nature and so he was a master at balancing the interests of both the owners who employed him and the players. He just had this ability to unite both sides, which is something politicians don’t have today.

When Buck Williams was drafted by the Nets in 1981, there were problems agreeing to a deal. He brought us in and the New Jersey owners and put us in separate offices and shuttled the offers back and forth until we had a deal in 45 minutes. Both sides were happy and he’d helped both sides.

Jerry Colangelo

FORMER OWNER OF THE PHOENIX SUNS AND FORMER CHAIRMAN OF THE NBA’S BOARD OF GOVERNORS He was a dear friend and someone I respected very much. He proved to be one of the greatest commissioners of all time in pro sports. The job he did was off the charts in terms of the growth and development of the NBA. He was the driving force for making the NBA what it became.

lou dePaoli

EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF REVENUE OFFICER, NEW YORK METS; FORMER EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND CMO, ATLANTA HAWKS Our TMBO group started “Stern Safaris,” one-day blitzes where David, a TMBO rep, and one of his assistants would visit an NBA market and touch as many people as we could in one day. These were very exhausting days as David was “on” all day.

David, myself, and Abbie Levine conducted a “Stern Safari” in Toronto. After the Raptors game that evening on our flight back to Westchester Airport we had a special surprise: a cooler packed with desserts courtesy of Air Canada Centre.

As we shared carrot cake, cheesecake, and 7-layer chocolate cake on our late-night flight, the three of us laughed, joked, and shared stories of our mutual love of sweets. This created a tradition that we would share on future trips together.

Ken derrett

FORMER NBA SVP, GLOBAL MARKETING PARTNERSHIPS; FORMER MANAGING DIRECTOR, NBA CANADA One of the great learning experiences was to go on a trip with him and see this huge pile of newspapers and magazines he carried around. He was always devouring as much information as he could find. He’d tear out a page, hand it to you and ask if you’d started working on this yet. That’s one reason he was always ahead in sections of the marketing business that we didn’t even know about yet.

Getty Images (2)

David Stern understood the incredible talent of NBA athletes and the passion of basketball fans. His innovative vision as a leader, mentor and friend, created the modern NBA. The Knicks organization, as well as the rest of the NBA, will be forever grateful for his impact on this great sport.

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

J A N U A R Y 27- F E B R U A R Y 2 , 2 02 0

|

31

CHRIS GRANGER

LONGTIME NBA PLAYER AGENT Some people describe him as a bully, but there were times when he had to be a bully. He is not one of the greatest commissioners; he is THE greatest commissioner ever in sports.

We lost him at a time where he had so much to contribute — that’s the saddest part.

He had to adopt a certain toughness or people would walk all over him. He had the talent, drive, discipline, and political skills to get the owners to march to his tune.

TOM FOX

FORMER NBA SPONSORSHIP AND SALES STAFF; LATER PRESIDENT OF THE SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES AND CEO OF ASTON VILLA He was just this relentless reader and digester of information. And then he would want to talk with you about something new he’d just read about. And you’d come to expect these weekend calls, or he’d email you at 11 p.m., and if you didn’t call back, he’d call you at 11:15, asking why you hadn’t responded yet.

DETROIT RED WINGS AND ILITCH HOLDINGS GROUP PRESIDENT OF SPORTS AND ENTERTAINMENT; FORMER NBA MARKETING EXECUTIVE

PETER FEIGIN

MILWAUKEE BUCKS PRESIDENT He was tough and demanding, but fair and always surrounded himself with good people. You always knew to be prepared and ready, so he made you better at whatever you were doing. His contributions to media, collective bargaining, and the international piece — those were all pillars of the business he helped build and put in motion.

What I will remember most about David is his humanity on a personal level. The call, the grace when my mother passed away. The introspective sounding board when I needed guidance on strategy, career decisions, or health care options for my father. The needed kick in the pants when I wasn’t pushing or negotiating hard enough. For me, his legacy is that of a treasured mentor.

While I will miss him terribly, I will take the lessons learned, in business and in life, and be a better executive and a better man, because of having the privilege of working with him.

SOPHIE GOLDSCHMIDT

FORMER CEO OF THE WORLD SURF LEAGUE; WORKED AT THE NBA AS MANAGING DIRECTOR, EMEA FROM 2007-2012 As a young executive, David always empowered me and the entire team to punch above our weight. He pushed us outside our comfort zones and made us believe in ourselves. He truly cared about the people he worked with, and the tenure of people who worked under him is a testament to the loyalty they felt towards him.

Scott Paulus / Milwaukee Business Journal

DAVID STERN TRIBUTES

DAVID FALK

32

|

J A N UA R Y 2 7 - F E B R UA R Y 2, 2 0 2 0

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

DAVID STERN 1942–2020

The Monumental family mourns the loss of David Stern – a true innovator and pioneer who loved the game of basketball. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the Stern family.

DAVID STERN TRIBUTES

Allen HersHkowitz

SPORT AND SUSTAINABILITY INTERNATIONAL CHAIRMAN AND FOUNDER I began collaborating with him in 2007. We set out to create “NBAGreen,” the league’s sustainability initiative.

He helped create one of the most influential environmental projects in the world. Not just in sports: in business, and in culture as well.

After he died, NBA President Kathy Behrens told me “David always made things better.” I saw that, and I saw as well that he always wanted to help. I learned much from his natural style of servant leadership.

scott o’neil

HARRIS BLITZER SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT CEO, WHICH OWNS THE PHILADELPHIA 76ERS; FORMER NBA SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, TEAM MARKETING AND BUSINESS OPERATIONS He used to say in every staff meeting that it was about the relentless pursuit of perfection. The challenge to us was to do more and be more prepared. Good was never good enough. Great wasn’t good enough. He had this incredible appetite to grow and work and his expectation was that we had the same gear. I remember one time him yelling at me and then winking. I said, “I got it now. This is a game.”

Milton lee

ATRIUM SPORTS PRESIDENT-U.S.; FORMER BROOKLYN NETS EXECUTIVE David was “interning” for Greycroft, the VC firm, because he was good friends with Alan Patricof.

He hosted a “Sports Tech Lunch” there in March 2017. A number of sports tech CEOs were in the room. It was like he was Leonard Bernstein conducting an orchestra. He was going around the room challenging people on things they said, amplifying themes he felt were important and he made sure everyone got a little whipping. It was an honor to take some of that whipping that day. It was his way of telling me I was one of the big boys.

tony Ponturo

FORMER ANHEUSER-BUSCH VICE PRESIDENT, GLOBAL MEDIA SPORTS AND ENTERTAINMENT MARKETING He was just a great listener. He listened to us as a sponsor, appreciated what was important and I think his caring and empathy was unmatched. He really understood that life should be a continual learning process. You don’t get to a point where you’re the smartest person in the room and then stop; you have to keep learning and evolving.

David understood that as well as anyone. That is an example everyone should learn from.

DAvyeon ross SHOTTRACKER CEO

I haven’t really met many people who could see around corners. There’s people who can see around one corner, but he was one who could see around three or four corners. In regards to what the future holds, he was that much of a visionary.

Bill scHMiDt

FORMER GATORADE SPORTS MARKETING HEAD He was always loyal to the ones that started and stayed with him. He protected us from Coke when they wanted to write a blank check to get Gatorade off courtsides. As the NBA went global so did Gatorade. No one knew what a sports drink was in Thailand, but they knew who Michael Jordan was.

We grew as the NBA did.

DAVID STERN 1942-2020 The NBA lost a true trailblazer in Commissioner Emeritus David Stern. The league flourished under his leadership and vision. His impact to the league was monumental and will live on forever.

“I was one of the people fortunate enough to shake his hand crossing the stage when my NBA dream came true. He was a great guy — he played a huge role in the growth of the game globally.”

—Damian Lillard

34

|

J A N UA R Y 27- F E B R UA R Y 2, 2020

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

DAVID SCHREFF

ACTV8ME CEO; FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE NBA’S MEDIA AND MARKETING GROUP David Stern was one of the Supermen of the industry. We all remain in awe of his command of so many different disciplines, whether it was law, media, marketing, licensing, sponsorship and the nexus of all of those, which he usually saw before most others.

JOHN SLUSHER

NIKE EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, GLOBAL SPORTS MARKETING

GLOBICON PRESIDENT; PEBBLE BEACH CO-CHAIRMAN; FORMER PRESIDENT, NBA INTERNATIONAL When most would have been skeptical that a woman could be effective, David challenged and entrusted me with a key role in the NBA’s global growth. Along the way, David transformed the sports and entertainment landscape, elevating the NBA into a worldwide phenomenon.

MIHEER WALAVALKAR LIVELIKE CEO

I learned so many lessons, like words I had never heard of before. Going with your gut. Emotion. Be passionate about something. Don’t go into something unprepared. In a negotiation, awkward silence is your best friend. Don’t show your cards. These are business lessons I got from him.

He was just always so optimistic about the future. He wasn’t bogged by, “Is this going to happen today or tomorrow?”

ZACK WEINER

OVERTIME CO-FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT

NBA stars like LeBron James grew Nike.

He gave us the confidence to blaze our own trail. I have never met anyone else like Commissioner — his relenting generosity, curiosity, and love changed my life as an entrepreneur, and more importantly, as a person. He was the best mentor I’ve ever had.

Commissioner was always lovingly ribbing people, and I was no exception. One of my favorites was for the 2018 NBA Finals, he got me tickets and when I arrived I texted him a picture of the tickets, thanking him. His response, “You are the man. On the lower level no less! (I told them to put you in the rafters ).” I think he sent more emojis per text than anyone I know.

Getty Images

He was tough, remarkably bright and incredibly hard-working, which I don’t think he got enough credit for. He was never afraid to take a tough position and deal with the consequences.

Confidence, intelligence, toughness and hard work is a pretty potent combination.

At Nike, we’re also incredibly grateful and indebted. I’m not sure where we would be today, in either the U.S. or in Europe or Asia, without the NBA’s huge strides and David Stern was obviously the force behind that.

HEIDI UEBERROTH

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

J A N U A R Y 27- F E B R U A R Y 2 , 2 02 0

|

35

“In the not-too-distant future, there’s going to be as many elite basketball players on other continents as there are in the [U.S.]. Once that was unthinkable.

If I’d suggested to you that there’d be 75 international [NBA] players a decade ago, you would’ve laughed at me. I’m telling you, does anyone think that Yao Ming is the last great player to come out of China?”

— On international players in the NBA (Los Angeles Times, 2/11)

quoted executives in sports, one whose quips and insights were a regular part of our coverage at Sports Business Daily since its founding in 1994.

1995 “I don’t call myself Easy David for nothing. I’m always prepared to give away some more of the owners’ money.”

— Vowing to get a deal with locked-out refs during a contract dispute (New York Post, 11/14)

“I’d rather not be part of a league that sends its scouts and [GMs] to 10th- and 11th-grade games so they can watch high schoolers. It’s not something that we’re particularly proud of.”

— On the number of players declaring for the NBA draft straight out of high school (ESPN, 5/26)

1996 “If we can’t do it, it can’t be done.”

— On the creation of the WNBA (The Washington Post, 6/27)

2005 “This is not about virtue anymore. This is not about public relations. This is not about business. This is about need and the specific opportunity that the world of sports has to respond to that need.”

— On the launch of the NBA Cares initiative (SBD, 10/18)

1997 “We recognize that sometimes people step over the line and sometimes people step very far over the line. This one looks like — without having all the facts — that someone went into the stratosphere.”

— On Latrell Sprewell’s attack on coach P.J. Carlesimo (The New York Times, 12/3)

2006

1998 “They say, ‘Watch us, tune into us … but I’m not a role model.’ Stop. You are an attention getter and you should agree to a certain code of conduct.”

— On player behavior and conduct (The Washington Post, 2/8)

A quarter-century of Stern in his own words

1999

2001

2002

“You know, it was never true when they said I was very good, and it’s not true when they say I’m very bad. It’s something in the middle.”

— On whether he was humbled by recent criticism after years of praise (CNN, 1/5)

“It’s a failure on our part, on the ownership part and I think on the business community’s part. No doubt about it. But we’re moving on. It was unhappy.”

— On the Grizzlies leaving Vancouver (FSN Detroit, 11/1)

“Maybe a very small number of people want to play video games on their telephone or keep track of how many points Allen Iverson is scoring. But let’s try it.”

— On the NBA’s future in digital media (Yahoo! Internet Life, 3/2)

“He would always call me when I did something he didn’t like and tell me I didn’t have any [balls]. One day he called me after I had done something he approved of and said that finally I had done something that showed I had them. One of the great days of my life.”

— On the passing of Boston Celtics President Red Auerbach (The Washington Post, 10/30)

2007 “We think we have here a rogue, isolated criminal.”

— On gambling allegations facing referee Tim Donaghy (SBD, 7/25)

Getty Images

DAVID STERN ON THE RECORD

2004

NBA COMMISSIONER DAVID STERN was one of the most

36

|

J A N UA R Y 27- F E B R UA R Y 2, 202 0

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

2008

2015

“I’m going to get in trouble for this, but I think they’re ridiculous. I think the noise, the fire, the smoke is a kind of assault that we should seriously consider reviewing in whether it’s really necessary given the quality of our game.”

— On the in-game entertainment experience (ESPN.com, 5/12)

“There should be federal legislation that says, ‘Let’s go all the way’ and have betting on sports. It’s OK. It’s going to be properly regulated.”

— Speaking to the Bergen Record (10/2)

2010 “To me, this is about Michael the businessman. I very much enjoy telling him that whatever he’s doing isn’t good enough. That’s all you have to tell him.”

— On Charlotte Bobcats owner Michael Jordan making the team financially viable following its first playoff appearance (Charlotte Business Journal, 4/30 issue)

2011 “What I would say to you, as diplomatically as I can, is when somebody invents a painless way to remove tattoos, there is going to be a lineup of our players saying, ‘Thank heavens! What was I thinking when I did this to myself?’”

— On the number of NBA players sporting tattoos (Fox Sports, 1/6)

celebrity pyramid. They’re thoughtful.

They’re making intelligent business decisions. Many of them have their own fashion lines and it’s very rewarding for me to watch that and to see, where if you go back 30 years, they weren’t at the top of the celebrity pyramid, they were at the basement of it.”

— To The Athletic on the 15th anniversary of the Malice at the Palace (11/15)

2019 2017

“My management style is characterized by worry.”

— On his management style (“The B.S. Report,” ESPN.com, 12/10)

removed from the banned list. You’ve persuaded me.”

— To former NBA player Al Harrington for a documentary on Uninterrupted (10/25)

“I’m now at the point where, personally, I think [marijuana] probably should be

“When you asked me what the proudest thing that happened on my watch is, that by the time I stepped away, our players were viewed as being at the top of the

IN MEMORY OF NBA COMMISSIONER EMERITUS

DAVID STERN Forevergratefulforhiscontributionstothegame.Hislegacyliveson.

“I would say it’s fair to say this is my last.

This is a 10-year deal, with a reopener at six. I’m not planning to be here certainly for the 10 and probably not the six.”

— Stating the 2011 collectivebargaining agreement would be his last (ESPN.com, 12/8)

2012 “I have two answers for that. I’ll give you the easy one: No. And a statement: Shame on you for asking.”

— Responding to CBS’s Jim Rome’s question about whether the NBA lottery was fixed (“The Jim Rome Show,” 6/13)

Patrick E. McCarthy

He was a great leader for our league, a great leader for us as a franchise, and he will be dearly missed by the DeVos family, coaches, players and staff of the Orlando Magic.

Alex Martins, CEO Orlando Magic WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

J A N U A R Y 27- F E B R U A R Y 2 , 2 02 0

|

37

LAS VEGAS

I

A SPORTS DESTINATION

PHOTOS: THE RAIDERS

A

s a city where big events fill the calendar and a few hundred thousand people visit on a typical weekend, Las Vegas is a natural fit to host the Super Bowl, the biggest annual sports and entertainment event in the United States.

Las Vegas is bidding to host the Super Bowl in 2025. The bid will be made possible with the addition of the stateof-the-art, $2 billion Allegiant Stadium scheduled for completion in July 2020.

For a city with a history of hosting major entertainment and sporting events, the new stadium will be the next critical piece of the venue puzzle, enabling Las Vegas to host the world’s largest sports and entertainment events.

“Las Vegas’ default position is ‘yes,’” said Jeremy Aguero, principal analyst at Applied Analysis, the firm that serves as staff to the Las Vegas Stadium Authority. “This is what we do; we have been preparing for the Super Bowl since the city’s inception more than 100 years ago.”

Las Vegas’ position as a premier hospitality destination starts with its tourism infrastructure. The city is home to 150,000 hotel rooms, more than any other U.S. city, and it boasts one of the top origin and destination airports in the nation. More than 300,000 people work in the hospitality industry, whether that’s casinos, sports venues or resorts, while

Allegiant Stadium will be one of the most technologically advanced event venues when it opens.

STADIUM TO ELEVATE LAS VEGAS EVENTS

Allegiant Stadium includes a set of sliding glass lanai doors that open toward the Las Vegas Strip. The opening features the Al Davis Memorial Torch honoring the legendary Raiders team founder and owner.

UNLV is home to the No. 1 hospitality college in the world. From top to bottom, Las Vegas’ hospitality workforce lives and breathes the principles of service and satisfaction that welcomed 42.1 million visitors, including 6.5 million convention attendees, in 2018.

While the Raiders’ season begins in August, the NFL’s presence in Las Vegas begins in April with NFL Draft 2020, one of the most anticipated pro football events of the year. The three-day draft event allows Las Vegas to do what it does best. When an event is held in Las Vegas, the city — its residents, hotels, public officials, everyone — is all in.

Aguero points to the 2019 National Finals Rodeo as an example.

“It’s not just a rodeo. It’s a 10-day phenomenon, with a Cowboy Christmas, concerts every day and activations up and down the Las Vegas Strip. Everyone, all over town, is decked out in rodeo gear. NFR sets a record every year. That is great for them, and for us,” said Aguero. “Our goal — for every event, every day, all year long — is to make sure everyone is welcome.

In Las Vegas, the party isn’t over until the last person goes home.”

The marriage of sports and entertainment has proven to be a success for Las Vegas. T-Mobile Arena, opened in 2016 in a partnership between MGM Resorts and AEG, has

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

WHEN AN EVENT IS HELD IN LAS VEGAS, THE CITY —— ITS RESIDENTS, HOTELS, PUBLIC OFFICIALS, EVERYONE —— IS ALL IN. outperformed expectations. Aguero also points to the success of multiple annual NASCAR events, the rapid growth of UFC, the hosting of several college sports conference championships and the welcoming of niche sports such as rugby, archery and curling.

“And, when you host an event in Las Vegas, more people attend,” said Aguero, pointing to the success of the US Bowling Congress Open Championships at the South Point and the boost in attendance for Pac-12 events now held in Las Vegas. “Allegiant Stadium and the Raiders are a quantum leap for Las Vegas as it relates to sports, but think about it, we’ve been hosting incredible sporting events for a long, long time, including the world’s biggest boxing matches dating to the 1970s. Certainly, the Super Bowl is different. But hosting major events is exactly what Las Vegas

I

SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

is designed to do.”

Allegiant Stadium will be a centerpiece of the Las Vegas sports and entertainment menu. Following the urban model set by U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, the stadium’s location near the Strip will allow fans to walk to games from nearby hotels. Its 126 suites, 8,000 club seats and multiple sideline venues are ideal for leveraging corporate events during games and concerts.

The facility will feature top-of-theline, state-of-the-art components, such as the translucent polymer roof that lets in natural light but keeps down summer heat, the ribbon structure along the sides to ventilate fresh air throughout and the natural grass field, which will be grown outside and wheeled in for NFL games.

Fan interest in the Raiders in Las Vegas has been strong, with all of the 65,000 personal seat licenses sold out.

More than half of the PSLs have been sold to fans outside of Nevada, an envious spot in terms of NFL teams and NFL cities, said Aguero.

“Las Vegas has been a sports town for a long time, but admittedly, under the radar,” said Aguero. “But we’ve started a more visible chapter with the Golden Knights, the Raiders, the NFL Draft and potentially the Super Bowl.

Never forget that Southern Nevada’s success is not by accident — it’s the result of sweat and investment, resiliency and resourcefulness, and a willingness to take risks. When someone tells us ‘can’t’ or ‘won’t,’ that’s when Las Vegas doubles down.”

Allegiant Stadium’s proximity to Las Vegas Strip hotels will allow thousands of fans to walk to events.

LAS VEGAS FOR THE WIN Las Vegas is the ultimate sports and events destination.

No matter the event, Vegas has the state-of-the-art facilities and stadiums to take your competition to the next level.

If you’re ready to play, you’re ready for Las Vegas.

Plan now at VegasMeansBusiness.com.

40

|

J A N UA R Y 27- F E B R UA R Y 2, 2 020

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

SUPER SHUFFLE

Adding a 17th regular-season game to the NFL schedule could push back the Super Bowl and start a domino effect with other sports and entertainment events.

BY BEN FISCHER

F

OR 17 STRAIGHT YEARS, THE NFL

postseason has followed a stable pattern: Conference championships on the penultimate Sunday of January, then a bye week, then the Super Bowl on the first Sunday of February.

In the meantime, other sports and entertainment properties have carefully crafted their own winter schedules around the NFL’s postseason, hoping to benefit from the strong TV-viewing winter months while giving the dominant NFL a wide berth.

That delicate dance could soon be disrupted. As part of talks with the NFL Players Association, NFL owners hope they can secure a 17th regular-season game, the first expansion of the season in 43 years. Among the biggest implications of expansion: The postseason would be pushed at least one week further into the crowded, critical broadcast month of February.

Few broadcasters and spor ts leagues would speculate on the record about how this move would affect their business. But it’s a high-stakes question. NASCAR, the NBA, the NHL, college basketball and the College Football Playoff could all see ramifications — they don’t dare share a date with NFL playoffs or the Super Bowl, but they have little hard information to go on for now and the planning timeline for major events starts years out.

“With the Super Bowl being as big as it is, everyone else is going to acquiesce to the NFL and shuffle,” said Nick Kelly, head of sports marketing for Anheuser-Busch InBev. “You don’t want to go head-to-head with the Super Bowl. But there are opportunities. What is Pro Bowl weekend now is a jump ball and a chance for someone to be extremely successful.”

The most likely outcome of the union negotiations is a single week added to the season, which would push the Super Bowl to the second week of February. (Commissioner Roger Goodell has ruled out starting the season before Labor Day, so any extension goes into February.) That’s where the Oscars currently resides after a change this year from the last Sunday of the month.

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

CONTINUED ON PAGE 42

XIII

Miam Flashback The playoffs are expanded from two rounds to three.

INSIDE THIS SECTION MIAMI NIGHTS f As Miami prepares to host its record 11th Super Bowl, a look back at the people and events around the 10 prior games and what to expect on Sunday.

Page 46 PARTY ON f Demand for hospitality and a willingness to spend converge in Miami.

Will the ROI justify it?

Page 48 BIG MOMENT f Hard Rock Stadium renovations set the stage for the Super Bowl's return to Miami. Page 49 NFL ISSUES f A look back at the storylines of 2019 and what the 2020 offseason holds for the league.

Page 50 SOCIAL IMPACT f NFL playoff teams drive value, affinity on social.

Page 51

Getty Images / Photo illustration

by Liz Spangler

J A N U A R Y 27- F E B R U A R Y 2 , 2 02 0

|

41

IN -DEPTH SUPER BOWL

2019 timeline

The Oscars would be forced to find a new date. The PGA Tour’s Pebble Beach Pro-Am, whose final round is typically the second Sunday of February, would also be forced to decide if it could still thrive while the world’s top echelon of entertainment celebrity was focused on the NFL. It would also shift the conference championship games into the Sunday currently used by the NHL for its all-star festivities.

Those are relatively manageable exchanges. But some insiders think there’s still a remote chance the season is extended two weeks — a second regular-season bye week as a sop to players worried about wear and tear. It would also place the Super Bowl the night before Presidents Day, giving a big chunk of the American workforce a day off, possibly goosing alcohol sales and game-related travel.

Broadcast partners would resist this because it would spread the regular season too thinly, but they’d be forced to go along if the league felt it was the only way to secure a 17th game, former Fox Sports Executive Producer Ed Goren said. “I don’t recall in all of my years ever feeling that we were going into a negotiation session with the NFL,” Goren said. “What we were doing is being told what they need to close the deal.”

That two-week shift would blow out the Daytona 500 and the NBA All-Star Game.

The Daytona 500 spent six years in late February, but

Compiled

by David Broughton

42

|

FEBRUARY f The NFL airs a twominute commercial during Super Bowl LIII on Feb. 3 to launch the league’s centennial campaign.

APRIL f The NFL draft attracts a record 600,000 fans in its first visit to Nashville, and combines for a 3.9 TV rating and an average of 6.1 million viewers across the NFL Network, ESPN, ABC and digital channels.

J A N UA R Y 2 7 - F E B R UA R Y 2 , 2 0 2 0

returned to Presidents Day weekend in 2018. The NBA has organized its all-star weekend on Presidents Day weekend every year since 2003, except for the lockoutabbreviated season of 2011-12, when it was played one week later.

For NASCAR, this may work out anyway. Due to its merger with International Speedway Corp. and the impending expiration of its contracts with individual tracks at the end of this year, NASCAR now has far more flexibility over its schedule. Senior executives are considering a consolidation of the entire NASCAR season, which would likely include moving Daytona 500 further into the calendar year.

The NBA and NASCAR declined to comment.

“It’s not even at the middle of the season like MLB All-Star is; the NBA tends to be later in the season, so maybe there’s some flexibility there,” said Justin Toman, head of sports marketing for PepsiCo North America Beverages.

Most speculation centers on marquee events, but some said college basketball’s regular-season value would be eroded too. There’s no one event that would get blown out, but it would represent another week of the regular season where basketball plays second fiddle to football.

“We’ve always said until the Super Bowl is over it’s hard to get people to focus on frankly anything else,” said one longtime sports media executive. “From the perspective

JUNE f Pat Bowlen, 75, Denver Broncos owner since 1984, dies on June 13 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease.

JULY f NFL announces that all of the league’s officials would return to part-time status, ending a two-season pilot program where some had been classified as full-time league employees.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 44

AUGUST f Lowe’s, Caesars and Oakley debut as league sponsors; McDonald’s does not return. f IG Field in Winnipeg, home of the CFL’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers, hosts an Oakland RaidersGreen Bay Packers preseason game on Aug. 22, the first NFL game in Canada since 2013. Many players, including quarterback Aaron Rodgers, refuse to play on the surface, which had been shortened to 80 yards long and had holes in the field caused by the relocation of the goal posts. f Indianapolis Colts quarterback and 2012 first overall draft pick Andrew Luck announces his retirement on Aug. 24, citing the mental and physical difficulties of playing football.

OCTOBER f Bill Bidwill, 88, owner of the Arizona Cardinals since the 1960s, dies on Oct. 2.

NOVEMBER f Cleveland Browns defensive end Myles Garrett is suspended on Nov. 15 for the rest of the season after ripping the helmet off Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph and hitting him with it during a Thursday night game. It is the longest penalty in NFL history for a single on-field transgression. f CBS’s coverage of the Buffalo Bills’ 26-15 win over the Dallas Cowboys on Thanksgiving was the regular season’s most-watched game, drawing 32.53 million viewers and a 13.5 average rating. f Fox sells out its Super Bowl ad inventory on Nov. 22, with prices topping out at $5.6 million for a 30-second spot.

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

Getty Images (5)

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 41

SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

Which Sunday of the new year the Super Bowl fell on.

JANUARY SUPER BOWL

SUPER BOWL DATES

DECEMBER f Amazon’s rights to stream Thursday night NFL ends. The company’s Twitch platform had added “co-streaming” with live commentary from specially chosen users of the service during its 2019 games. f Broncos CEO and President Joe Ellis says that if Brittany Bowlen, daughter of the late team owner Pat Bowlen, does not rise to the role of controlling owner, t next move would the b to put the team up be fo or sale.

XXXIII

Getty Images (2)

Miami Flashback 19% of the ad revenue generated came from banks and credit cards, the most of any category that year and still the highest share ever by that sector.

JANUARY 2020 f The Professional Football Writers of America on Jan. 16 name San Francisco 49ers general manager John Lynch NFL Executive of the Year.

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

Conference championship games could get pushed to the last Sunday in January if the NFL adds a 17th regular-season game to its schedule.

FEBRUARY SUPER BOWL

GAME

DATE

VENUE (HOST CITY)

I

Jan. 15, 1967 Memorial Coliseum (Los Angeles)

II

Jan. 14, 1968 Orange Bowl (Miami)

III

Jan. 12, 1969 Orange Bowl (Miami)

IV

Jan. 11, 1970 Tulane Stadium (New Orleans)

V

Jan. 17, 1971 Orange Bowl (Miami)

VI

Jan. 16, 1972 Tulane Stadium (New Orleans)

VII

Jan. 14, 1973 Memorial Coliseum (Los Angeles)

VIII

Jan. 13, 1974 Rice Stadium (Houston)

IX

Jan. 12, 1975 Tulane Stadium (New Orleans)

X

Jan. 18, 1976 Rose Bowl (Pasadena, Calif.)

XI

Jan. 9, 1977

XII

Jan. 15, 1978 Superdome (New Orleans)

2ND 3RD 4TH 5TH 6TH

Orange Bowl (Miami)

XIII

Jan. 21, 1979 Orange Bowl (Miami)

XIV

Jan. 20, 1980 Rose Bowl (Pasadena, Calif.)

XV

Jan. 25, 1981 Louisiana Superdome (New Orleans)

XVI

Jan. 24, 1982 Pontiac Silverdome (Pontiac, Mich.)

XVII

Jan. 30, 1983 Rose Bowl (Pasadena, Calif.)

XVIII

Jan. 22, 1984 Tampa Stadium (Tampa)

XIX

Jan. 20, 1985 Stanford Stadium (Palo Alto, Calif.)

XX

Jan. 26, 1986 Louisiana Superdome (New Orleans)

XXI

Jan. 25, 1987 Rose Bowl (Pasadena, Calif.)

XXII

Jan. 31, 1988 Jack Murphy Stadium (San Diego)

XXIII

Jan. 22, 1989 Joe Robbie Stadium (Miami)

XXIV

Jan. 28, 1990 Louisiana Superdome (New Orleans)

XXV

Jan. 27, 1991 Tampa Stadium (Tampa)

XXVI

Jan. 26, 1992 Metrodome (Minneapolis)

XXVII

Jan. 31, 1993 Rose Bowl (Pasadena, Calif.)

XXVIII

Jan. 30, 1994 Georgia Dome (Atlanta)

XXIX

Jan. 29, 1995 Joe Robbie Stadium (Miami)

XXX

Jan. 28, 1996 Sun Devil Stadium (Tempe, Ariz.)

XXXI

Jan. 26, 1997 Louisiana Superdome (New Orleans)

XXXII

Jan. 25, 1998 Qualcomm Stadium (San Diego)

XXXIII

Jan. 31, 1999 Pro Player Stadium (Miami)

XXXIV

Jan. 30, 2000 Georgia Dome (Atlanta)

XXXV

Jan. 28, 2001 Raymond James Stadium (Tampa)

XXXVI

Feb. 3, 2002

XXXVII

Jan. 26, 2003 Qualcomm Stadium (San Diego)

XXXVIII

Feb. 1, 2004

Louisiana Superdome (New Orleans) Reliant Stadium (Houston)

XXXIX

Feb. 6, 2005

Alltel Stadium (Jacksonville)

XL

Feb. 5, 2006

Ford Field (Detroit)

XLI

Feb. 4, 2007

Dolphin Stadium (Miami)

XLII

Feb. 3, 2008

University of Phoenix Stadium (Glendale, Ariz.)

XLIII

Feb. 1, 2009

Raymond James Stadium (Tampa)

XLIV

Feb. 7, 2010

Sun Life Stadium (Miami)

XLV

Feb. 6, 2011

AT&T Stadium (Arlington, Texas)

XLVI

Feb. 5, 2012

Lucas Oil Stadium (Indianapolis)

XLVII

Feb. 3, 2013

Mercedes-Benz Superdome (New Orleans)

XLVIII

Feb. 2, 2014

MetLife Stadium (East Rutherford, N.J. )

XLIX

Feb. 1, 2015

University of Phoenix Stadium (Glendale, Ariz.)

50

Feb. 7, 2016

Levi’s Stadium (Santa Clara, Calif.)

LI

Feb. 5, 2017

NRG Stadium (Houston)

LII

Feb. 4, 2018

U.S. Bank Stadium (Minneapolis)

LIII

Feb. 3, 2019

Mercedes-Benz Stadium (Atlanta )

LIV

Feb. 2, 2020

Hard Rock Stadium (Miami)

LV

Feb. 7, 2021

Raymond James Stadium (Tampa)

LVI

Feb. 6, 2022

SoFi Stadium (Inglewood, Calif.)

LVII

Feb. 5, 2023

State Farm Stadium (Glendale, Ariz.)

LVIII

Feb. 4, 2024

Mercedes-Benz Superdome (New Orleans)

J A N U A R Y 27- F E B R U A R Y 2 , 2 02 0

|

43

IN -DEPTH SUPER BOWL CONTINUED FROM PAGE 42

TOP:

Both the NBA All-Star Game and the Academy Awards could find their dates in conflict with the NFL postseason.

BELOW RIGHT: The Super Bowl first landed in Feburary in 2002 due to cancellations after 9/11.

nently installed the game in February.

It could become more challenging to find a host city if the league keeps pushing the game into February, said retired NFL special events director Jim Steeg. The early Super Bowls worked well because convention season hadn’t started yet just after New Year’s Day, but corporate guests start to fill hotels and resorts by mid-February. Those conventions are less lucrative than the Super Bowl, but many are booked eight to 10 years out.

The Super Bowl is locked into cities only through New Orleans in 2024 (cities must account for multiple dates in their planning, the league said).

Changes to the NFL’s schedule most likely wouldn’t come until after media deals expire in 2022, so executives have not given it serious attention yet, sources said. But there are few good options.

“By and large, the NFL is big enough to just do it,” one insider said.

“And everyone else is going to have to figure out ways to suffer or get out of the way.”

NBAE / Getty Images; Getty Images (2)

of other sports properties, the Super Bowl pushing out into the second or even third week of February is a challenge. The longer the NFL is in play in postseason, the harder it is for the NBA, NHL and college basketball. That’s just a fact.”

The Winter Olympics also is a consideration.

What will happen for the first time in 2022 — a direct conflict between the Games and the Super Bowl — would become standard procedure. NBC and CBS swapped Super Bowls to allow NBC to have both in 2022, leading to sales synergies. That would become a standing issue for the Super Bowl rotation.

On the front end of a shifted NFL playoffs, the College Football Playoff would be on regular-season NFL weekends. Most insiders thought that would not change much, with a caveat: The NFL is also looking at expanding the playoffs by two teams.

That would put two more games onto wild-card weekend, creating competition for marketer dollars in the first half of January. “Even if it’s not literally on the same window as the CFP, that’s a lot of money to seek from the marketplace postChristmas,” said one media expert. “I think it’s an open question where that money’s coming from.”

On the current calendar, a third wild-card game on each day of that weekend would bring the NFL into direct competition with the Golden Globes on the first Sunday of January. But that conflict would go away if the playoffs started a week later.

Before the present period of stability, the Super Bowl moved around fairly frequently in its first 37 years. Super Bowl I took place on the third weekend of January (Jan. 15, 1967), but occasionally slipped into the second weekend or the fourth weekend in its first 12 editions.

When the regular season expanded from 14 to 16 games in the 1978 season, the Super Bowl then jumped to the fourth or fifth weekend of January, depending on how the calendar fell. But experiments with adding or subtracting the pre-Super Bowl bye week altered things from time to time.

The Super Bowl first fell into February in 2002 as an emergency solution to the 9/11 cancellations earlier that season. The following year, the league delayed its opening week until after Labor Day; the year after that, the league reinstated the preSuper Bowl bye week — two changes that perma-

44

|

J A N UA R Y 2 7 - F E B R UA R Y 2 , 2 0 2 0

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

ROB MANFRED COMMISSIONER | MLB At a pivotal time for MLB, hear how he is reshaping the game ямБve years into his tenure.

MARCH 25-26, 2020 I MONARCH BEACH RESORT I DANA POINT, CA

YOUNG EXECUTIVE PROGRAM PARTNER

OFFICIAL TICKETING PARTNER

ALL-ACCESS SPONSOR

OFFICIAL SIGNAGE PROVIDER

REGISTER TODAY! GO TO WWW.WORLDCONGRESSOFSPORTS.COM

iami Nights Miami is hosting the Super Bowl for a record 11th time. We look back at some facts, figures and happenings around those 10 previous Super Bowls and what to expect on Sunday.

Compiled by David Broughton III

XXIII PREGAME

Tribute to Apollo-Saturn 8 astronauts, with Bob Hope. The astronauts led the Pledge of Allegiance.

X

NATIONAL ANTHEM

Up with People

PREGAME

Lloyd Geisler (Washington

NATIONAL ANTHEM

National Symphony Orchestra trumpeter)

HALFTIME SPONSOR

None

HALFTIME PRODUCER(S)

HALFTIME PRODUCER(S)

None

Up with People

II

South Florida-area dancers and performers and 3-D effects

HALFTIME SPONSOR

HALFTIME SPONSOR

’71

HALFTIME

Up With People

None

’70

Billy Joel

HALFTIME

Florida A&M University band

’69

NATIONAL ANTHEM

Tom Sullivan

HALFTIME

’68

Salute to South Florida and NASA Program; flyover by 31st Tactical Wing, Homestead Air Force Reserve base

’72

’73

’74

’75

’76

’77

’78

Diet Coke HALFTIME PRODUCER(S)

MagicCom Entertainment; Dan Witkowski ’79

’80

’81

’82

’84

’85

’86

PREGAME

PREGAME

PREGAME

AFL and NFL giant figures; Air Force flyover

Southern University and Northeast Missouri College bands

NATIONAL ANTHEM

NATIONAL ANTHEM

Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders; military bands

Grambling University band

Tommy Loy (trumpeter)

NATIONAL ANTHEM

HALFTIME

The Colgate Thirteen

HALFTIME

Florida A&M University band

HALFTIME

Ken Hamilton and various Caribbean bands

HALFTIME SPONSOR

None

HALFTIME SPONSOR

HALFTIME PRODUCER(S)

HALFTIME SPONSOR

None

None

Carnival Cruise Line

HALFTIME PRODUCER(S)

HALFTIME PRODUCER(S)

None

Bob Jani

Where does Miami rank as a Super Bowl host city?

One of the top three host cities 52% Outside of the top three, but still a worthy host city 33% The best host city 6% Not a great host city 4% Not sure / No response 5%

How has the popularity of the following Super Bowl broadcast elements changed over the last 10 years?

Halftime show 35% 30% Commercials The game itself 20%

28% 36% 55%

MORE POPULAR

37% 34% 25%

Source: Turnkey Intelligence in conjunction with Sports Business Journal. Turnkey Intelligence specializes in research, measurement and lead generation for brands and properties.

Visit www.turnkeyintel.com.

46

|

J A N UA R Y 2 7 - F E B R UA R Y 2 , 2 0 2 0

Unforgettable ads

The following are results of the Turnkey Sports Poll taken in December. The survey covered more than 2,000 senior-level sports industry executives spanning professional and college sports.

NO CHANGE

’88

’89

’90

’91

’92

MIAMI TICKET PRICES II, III $12

V $15

X $20

XIII $30

XVII $60

XXIX $200

II

Miami Flashback The game earns the first $3 million gate in pro football history.

TURNKEY SPORTS POLL

LESS POPULAR

’87

XIII

V

Grambling University band

’83

HOLIDAY INN (1997) “SEX CHANGE” To promote its $1 billion efforts to renovate all of its hotels, the spot featured a sexy woman walking through her class reunion, where a creepy male alumnus discovers that “Bob Johnson” has had a sex change.

JUST FOR FEET (1999) The ad, created by Saatchi & Saatchi, showed a barefooted Kenyan runner sprinting through the desert, unaware that a group of white men in a Humvee were tracking him.

After they give him water spiked with a sedative, he wakes up with Nikes on and screams. Just For Feet went into bankruptcy protection just a few months later and closed its last store in 2004.

XXXIII $325

XLI $600, $700

XLIV $500, $800, $900, $1,000

LIV $950, $1,400, $2,900, $3,300 (and the NFL is giving away 500 tickets for free)

SNICKERS (2007) “MECHANICS” The TBWA/Chiat/Daycreated ad showed two male mechanics, working on an engine, accidentally kissing as they shared a candy bar.

Source: NFL

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

Getty Images (2)

entertainment roster

PREGAME

SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

70M

XLIV

80M

60M

Miami Flashback

XXIX PREGAME

106.48 million viewers tune into the game, making it the most-watched TV broadcast in American history, breaking the record that had been set in 1983, when 105.97 million people tuned in to the final episode of “M*A*S*H”.

90M

Sergio Mendes and Hank Williams, Jr.; flyover by 93rd Fighter Squadron, Homestead Air Force Reserve base

50M

NATIONAL ANTHEM

Kathie Lee Gifford

WHO’S WATCHING 39

Tony Bennett, Patti LaBelle, Arturo Sandoval, the Miami Sound Machine and skydivers. The finale included audience participation — a first — with light sticks.

.1

20M

Doritos HALFTIME PRODUCER(S)

10M

Disney ’94

’95

’96

’97

’98

’99

’00

’ 1

’03

XXXIII

’04

’05

’06

’07

PREGAME

DJ Khaled

’08

’09

’10

’11

’12

PREGAME

PREGAME

PREGAME

Cirque du Soleil; Romero Britto; Louie Vega

Chris Daughtry; Steve Winwood; Queen Latifah

NATIONAL ANTHEM

HALFTIME

Stevie Wonder, Gloria Estefan, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and tap dancer Savion Glover Progressive Auto Insurance HALFTIME PRODUCER(S)

Radio City Productions

Jennifer Lopez and Shakira HALFTIME SPONSOR

Pepsi HALFTIME PRODUCER(S)

20.0

’

30.0

’14

’15

Ricky Kirshner; VAMC Studios; Roc Nation Sports

40.0

’16

’17

’18

’19

’20

NATIONAL ANTHEM

Carrie Underwood

Billy Joel HALFTIME

HALFTIME

Prince

HALFTIME SPONSOR

HALFTIME

XLIV

KISS Cher

Demi Lovato

10.0

XLI

NATIONAL ANTHEM

NATIONAL ANTHEM

R AT I N G S 36.8 36.0 39.9 42.3 47.1 43.5 41.3 40.2 42.6 45.0

II III V X XIII XXIII XXIX XXXIII XLI XLIV

41 m .7m 46 .0m 57.

7m 74 . 7 m 81.6m 8 3.4m 83. 7m 9 3 .2m 10 6 . 5m VIEWERS

HALFTIME SPONSOR

’93

LIV

100M

HALFTIME

The Who

HALFTIME SPONSOR

Pepsi

HALFTIME SPONSOR

HALFTIME PRODUCER(S)

Bridgestone

Don Mischer Productions; White Cherry Entertainment

HALFTIME PRODUCER(S)

Ricky Kirshner

On the air TV PLAY-BY-PLAY ANNOUNCER/ COLOR COMMENTATOR(S)

TV SIDELINE REPORTER(S)

II CBS Jan. 14, 1968

Ray Scott/Pat Summerall and Jack Kemp

Frank Gifford and Jack Whitaker

III Jan. 12, 1969

Curt Gowdy/Kyle Rote and Al DeRogatis

GAME (DATE)

V Jan. 17, 1971

NBC

Pat Summerall/Tom Brookshier and Hank Stram

XIII Jan. 21, 1979

Curt Gowdy/John Brodie and Merlin Olsen

NBC

TV TROPHY PRESENTATION

Frank Gifford

Bill Enis

None

Jack Buck/ Hank Stram

CBS

XXIX ABC Jan. 29, 1995

Al Michaels/Frank Gifford and Dan Dierdorf

Lynn Swann and Lesley Visser

Brent Musburger

XXXIII Fox Jan. 31, 1999

Pat Summerall/ John Madden

Ron Pitts and Bill Maas

Terry Bradshaw

XLIV Feb. 7, 2010 LIV Feb. 2, 2020

Fox

Joe Buck/Troy Aikman

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

NBC

Jay Randolph/ Al DeRogatis

Mike Adamle Bob Costas

Jim Nantz/Phil Simms

Jack Drees/ Tom Hedrick

Ed Ingles/ Jim Kelly

Jim Gray

CBS

CBS

Tom Brookshier and Sonny Jurgensen

Dick Enberg/Merlin Olsen

XLI Feb. 4, 2007

RADIO PLAY-BY-PLAY ANNOUNCER/COLOR COMMENTATOR

RADIO NETWORK

Jim Simpson

Curt Gowdy/Kyle Rote

X CBS Jan. 18, 1976

XXIII Jan. 22, 1989

Getty Images (3)

TV NETWORK

Lesley Visser, Sam Ryan, Steve Tasker and Solomon Wilcots Steve Tasker and Solomon Wilcots Erin Andrews and Chris Myers

Jim Nantz

Terry Bradshaw

XXIX

Miami Flashback Jack Buck calls his 17th and final Super Bowl.

Howard David/ Matt Millen CBS/ Westwood One

Marv Albert/ Boomer Esiason Kevin Harlan/ Kurt Warner

RADIO SIDELINE REPORTER(S)

None

Brent Musburger Irv Cross and Will McDonough None John Dockery John Dockery and Bonnie Bernstein James Lofton and Mark Malone Laura Okmin and Tony Boselli

J A N U A R Y 27- F E B R U A R Y 2 , 2 02 0

|

47

IN -DEPTH SUPER BOWL

PARTY TIME! EXCELLENT!

The demand of hospitality and a corporate willingness to spend converge this week in Miami. Will the ROI withstand the measurement test? lis and Atlanta — are usually described as destination cities.

Miami is different. With the circus of the Super Bowl around Miami this week, there’s unprecedented demand for tickets and hospitality and an expansive and abundant tableau for corporate market activation and entertainment.

BY TERRY Corporate excess at the Super Bowl is nothing new, LEFTON especially when the economy is booming. Still, in an age when ROI demand is at its height, and while analytics and metrics are the industry’s new rocket science, can Super Bowl entertainment withstand that rigorous examination?

Certainly, there are the tried and true measures.

“Every year our event generates more than 500 million media impressions,” said Marc Pollick, founder and president of the Giving Back Fund, staging its 11th Big Game, Big Give fundraiser Saturday night at a $65 million home on Star Island. “And our sponsors want to interact with high net worth individuals — we have those.” The soiree normally raises more than $1 million, and tickets cost $3,000 and up.

For some of the larger parties, it often gets down to PR hits and that elusive social media buzz metric.

“We’ve got scale and there’s sponsor excitement about working with big names,” said Joe Silberzweig, co-founder of Medium Rare, an event company staging the 3,000-person Gronk Beach festival Saturday afternoon on Miami Beach (all-inclusive tickets start at $400) and Shaquille O’Neal’s Shaq Fun House party (tickets start at $350) Friday night in Miami’s Wynwood art district, which should draw around 5,000 people. “It gets down to social buzz, media impressions, and the possibility that your brand will get that milliondollar photo of Gronk or Shaq holding your product on stage.”

Anheuser-Busch InBev is sponsoring both parties, along with the Bud Light Music Festival at AmericanAirlines Arena, and a number of private events for its 600 or so trade guests.

“ROI for our B-to-B crowd is easier to measure, because we can track sales lifts,” said Nick Kelly, A-B InBev vice president of partnerships, beer culture and community. “Consumer-focused events are easier when you own and control content, which is one reason we sponsor the music fest. When you’re one of 10 sponsors, it’s just really difficult, so then it’s just we were entertaining clients and they wanted to go.”

Private aviation and a booming economy are symbiotic. Throw in a location like Miami, and “our flight bookings are up 50 percent easily,” said Wheels Up executive vice president Gary Spit-

48

|

J A N UA R Y 27- F E B R UA R Y 2, 2 020

alnik. For the seventh consecutive year, Wheels Up is hosting a Saturday afternoon tailgate party, with 2,000 people expected. “Between this and Augusta, they’re our biggest events, so it’s just developed as a way to take care of our members.”

AT&T is sponsoring a series of concerts, including a Saturday night event for 9,000 to 10,000 with Lady Gaga as the headliner, and an experiential engagement for Sunday Ticket subscribers and for its new AT&T TV streaming services.

“AT&T is now a media and entertainment company, so we need to be present at these kinds of events just to redefine our brand,’’ said Valerie Vargas, senior vice president of advertising and creative at AT&T. The challenge is to turn a local event into something with reach, so Lady Gaga will be streamed by those opting in, “a warm brand consideration moment, that will allow us to continue marketing to them and move them down the funnel to purchase. … Social buzz is important, of course, but that’s an area where metrics are still evolving,” Vargas said.

“So much of buzz is consumers complaining,’’ said Chris Weil, CEO of Verizon experiential agency Momentum Worldwide. “The intent is to provide people with a reason to talk about a brand positively, and certainly that’s measurable.’’

Pepsi is using the Super Bowl to push its Pepsi Zero Sugar, Gatorade and assorted Frito-Lay brands.

Pepsi sports marketing head Justin Toman said local retail sell-in for the Super Bowl and hospitality demand are both up substantially, the latter around 20% or more, with around 500 hospitality guests expected to attend. ROI is anchored by the big guns: Gatorade on the sidelines and Pepsi sponsoring the halftime show.

“The scale of Super Bowl is what makes it different. Social is really powerful, especially for the halftime show, and we can and do measure that and work on the value of that engagement. There are starting to be algorithms that attempt to estimate purchase intent or a brand equity elevation,” he said.

While most of those ROI measures are far from perfected, Toman said that in recent years, Pepsi

top: Star power offers the Big Game, Big Give fundraiser cachet for sponsors. above: Rob Gronkowski’s beach fest is expected to to draw up to 3,000 revelers to Miami Beach.

has been able to track substantial double-digit gains in post-Super Bowl consumer sentiments including “Pepsi is a leader in sports culture” and “Pepsi is a leader in music culture.”

In the absence of a definitive metric, the various “social buzz” measures have come to the forefront. However, experts warn not to let quantity take precedence over quality.

“The intent of these events is to create buzz and a deeper brand connection,” said Horizon Media’s Eliza Fedewicz. “So sentiment and quality of that social conversation takes precedence over how much.”

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

The Giving Back Fund

NONE OF the past three Super Bowl sites — Houston, Minneapo-

SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

Super Bowl returns to Hard Rock’s luxury

Miami Dolphins; Matthew Noel

IT ONLY took a decade and a $600 mil-

lion renovation of Hard Rock Stadium to bring the Super Bowl back to Miami for a record 11th time.

Visitors attending the 54th edition of the Super Bowl can expect essentially a different venue compared to 2010, when the Magic City last hosted the game, thanks to a

BY KARN five-year phased renovation of Hard Rock StaDHINGRA dium that began in 2012.

“I think a big reason for the renovation was for the Super Bowl, and one of the things that I know that the NFL had told [the Miami Dolphins] was the roof canopy was a requirement and a few other things of course,” said Michael Day, HOK principal and senior project manager for the venue’s renovation.

“Everyone in the seating bowl has a new seat compared to the previous iteration, and with the efforts that we’ve put into the canopy as it relates to the quality of the field and how that’s maintained, it’s really going to change the way that the fans experience this game for sure,” Day said.

Other upgrades include improving 147 suites, new theater boxes, new corner clubs for suite holders, renovated concourses, reducing the stadium’s suites by 25 and overall seating to 65,000 to put fans closer to the game, and new party terraces on the 300 level, which are standing room spaces with doublesided bars open to the public.

“The introduction of new seating products that now are being copied elsewhere for premium guests and even some of the social spaces is a point of pride with this renovation,” Day added. “I think in particular the sideline seats, the living room boxes are something that were unique, and have sort of changed the way that everybody looks at what those most elite seats might have as amenities.”

Fans in those seats are provided with a TV, in-seat service with premium food and beverage options, and access to clubs behind their seats.

Other upgrades to the stadium experience include ingress and egress improvements.

“The parking lot experience to your seat has been enhanced with new escalators, with new site amenities that weren’t there previously,” Day said.

“There’s a premium special lane that you can purchase, to have a private lane in and out, and the overall traffic flow and the site amenities in that experience I think is pretty fantastic compared to what it was before.”

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

NFL PREPARATIONS ERIC FINKELSTEIN, the NFL’s director of event operations, told Sports Business Journal that upward of 6,000 people have worked around the Hard Rock Stadium site to prepare and secure the area for fans who will visit the stadium on Sunday. “And we have a 300-foot perimeter, since the Super Bowl is a tier one national security event, that has to be installed, which equates to about 4.5 miles of fencing,” he said.

Finkelstein said the NFL expects 11,000 guests at the league’s tailgate party, and On Location Experiences is taking over the Miami Open’s tennis courts at Hard Rock Stadium. The NFL expects 14,000 to 16,000 guests for the different parties being held on the grounds of the stadium as well during Super Bowl week.

On game day, two fan plaza areas will be available with varied food options. Fans also will have photo opportunities with the Vince Lombardi Trophy and can take in other interactive installations.

“The stadium itself will open at 2 p.m. on Super Bowl Sunday, which obviously gives you 4 1/2 hours before game time. So, that will have programming in the building as well, as well as all the screens on the exterior,” Finkelstein added. The programming will be centered on the NFL’s 100th season, the league’s all-time team and Super Bowl contenders — Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers.

above: below:

Living room boxes at Hard Rock Stadium offer fans TV viewing, luxury seating.

The stone crab cocktail is among Centerplate’s Miami-flavored offerings.

A FEAST IN THE MAKING ON THE food front, Centerplate will be hosting its 15th Super Bowl and will provide curated offerings led by the first female head chef to host a Super Bowl — Dayanny de la Cruz.

Carmen Callo, Centerplate’s corporate executive chef, said this is the first Super Bowl to feature the plantbased Impossible Burger. Other offerings — Cubano sausage, fresh watermelon salads, ceviche, empanadas, lobster tails and Cubano coffee — will have a Miami feel, Callo added.

Centerplate is also hosting the Super Bowl LIV NFL Fan Experience at the Miami Beach Convention Center all week.

FAN SPENDING This year’s game will be the fifth that concessionaire Centerplate has hosted in Miami, including three as the Boston Culinary Group. Here’s what an average fan spent on food and beverage during the company’s previous two South Florida Super Bowls.

XLI Dolphin Stadium

$78.50 XLIV Sun Life Stadium

$71.00

J A N U A R Y 27- F E B R U A R Y 2 , 2 02 0

|

49

IN -DEPTH SUPER BOWL

6

ISSUES FROM 2019

PLAYER HEALTH

(RELATIVELY) SMOOTH SAILING

Three stars with a combined 16 Pro Bowl selections — Rob Gronkowski, Andrew Luck and

Robert Kraft’s legal jeopardy, Colin Kaepernick’s aborted special workout and the THURSDAY NIGHT BRAWL in Cleveland caused headaches, but none of them dragged the whole league into weeks of PR hell like some past crises.

LUKE KUECHLY

— retired in their 20s (Kuechly this month). Meanwhile, 13 teams’ opening day-starting quarterbacks missed significant playing time in 2019.

7

ISSUES HEADING INTO 2020 Compiled by Ben Fischer MEDIA RIGHTS NEGOTIATIONS

SOFI STADIUM OPENS The Chargers’ grace period in a transitional venue expires, and the club will be under pressure to finally connect with Angelenos.

But that’s just half the equation at the palatial, $5 billion SOFI STADIUM, which Rams owner Stan Kroenke and the entire NFL are counting on to solidify the L.A. experiment.

Expect massive fee increases, but keep an eye on how rights packages are structured and the pace of transition to streaming. Those decisions will influence how fans watch for years.

TOM BRADY If the most successful QB ever — a free agent — joins a new team, it could set off a rapid reordering of club prospects.

ATTENDANCE REBOUND?

OFFICIATING

No new minority head coaches were hired this season, and it’s become undeniable that the NFL has failed to promote minority personnel development as the ’03 Rooney Rule intended.

Officiating again dominated fan discussion as questionable calls swung key games. A new rule allowing REPLAY REVIEW of pass interference — designed in response to the blown call in last year’s NFC championship game — only created more fodder.

SILENCE ON UNION TALKS After offseason buzz that NFLPA contract talks might get done quickly — and continued reporting that the two sides are not far off — the 2019 season passed with scant evidence of progress.

50

|

Ron Rivera (pictured), hired by the Redskins after the Panthers fired him, is the only minority to fill a vacant head coaching post.

RATINGS The precipitous viewership loss of 2017 hasn’t quite been erased, but the NFL’s second straight year of 5% ratings growth has NFL executives over the moon. Every broadcaster except for the NFL Network saw gains, all the more valuable when juxtaposed against the collapse of non-sports TV viewership.

J A N UA R Y 2 7 - F E B R UA R Y 2 , 2 0 2 0

JOE BURROW

— the Heisman Trophy winner and expected No. 1 pick — under center.

BRONCOS OWNERSHIP If BRITTANY BOWLEN can’t mend fences with her sisters, currently in court trying to block her path to becoming controlling owner, the franchise is headed for a sale.

RAIDERS RELOCATE The biggest step yet by the NFL to pull its low-revenue teams into the middle class is putting the beloved but impoverished Raiders in a new stadium in the country’s hottest sports market, Las Vegas.

UNION ELECTIONS NFLPA President Eric Winston cannot seek re-election in March, and his successor might alter the union’s entire outlook. At a minimum, expect a delay in talks if a deal isn’t done before the transition.

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

Getty Images (7); Los Angeles Rams

MINORITY HIRING

Count on the NFL’s four-year attendance slide to stop in 2020.

Two of the three lowestdrawing teams, the Raiders and Chargers, will move into new stadiums.

The third, the Bengals, will likely start the year with LSU’s

SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

Playoff teams drive value, affinity on social

Twitter (2)

BY WILL CAVANAUGH IT’S LONG been said in sports that there’s no promotion like winning. While that may be true, improved fan avidity, increased ticket sales, effective sponsor activations and partner retention are just some of the key performance indicators that teams can analyze to more fully understand how they performed over the course of a season.

The average NFL team has more than 6 FROM OUR million followers across Facebook, TwitBUSINESS INTELLIGENCE ter and Instagram. With a significant porGROUP tion of a franchise’s fan base likely following the team on social media, observing follower behavior and interest provides deep and meaningful insights that can drive strategy and help measure success.

Using data from Zoomph, a company specializing in social audience intelligence and sponsorship measurement, teams can discover how much value they generated for their partners and how likely a fan base is to show affinity toward each team’s partners.

The Patriots led all playoff teams in value generated for their partners with more than $12 million earned from September to December. Despite posting less frequently than some teams, the Patriots drove partner value by including sponsors in posts related to game day. For instance, scoring updates (Bose), inactive reports (Massachusetts General Hospital), pregame (Dunkin’), expert predictions (Microsoft Surface), and other content all were presented by Patriots partners.

Tying sponsors to content that fans craved, combined with the Patriots’ large follower base, generated substantial value. Lower values tallied by the Vikings, Packers and Titans were driven by less frequent postings, fewer sponsored activations and limited follower engagement.

Every social media user creates a unique footprint through the accounts they interact with and follow. By observing these accounts, each team’s footprint can be compared to the rest of the league to see where followers over-index. Franchises are able to gauge how strong of a connection exists between their followers and sponsors.

Ravens followers display the strongest affinity toward a team’s stadium naming-rights partner (M&T Bank) compared with this year’s other nine playoff teams with stadium naming-rights partners. The strong affinity between Ravens followers and M&T Bank can be attributed to a combination of the length of the partnership (16 years) and the location of the bank. With M&T Bank exclusively operating along the East Coast, it is less likely that followers of other teams, especially those located in other parts of the country, follow and engage with M&T Bank on social media.

Conversely, naming-rights partners with a national reach such as Mercedes-Benz (Saints), Gillette (Patriots), Nissan (Titans), and Levi’s (49ers) have relatively lower affinity levels among the sponsored team’s follower base. At $6 million, M&T Bank’s annual investment as the Ravens’ naming-rights partner ranks near the bottom of

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

SPONSORSHIP VALUE Value and post count of each NFL playoff team generated for their partners on team-owned Twitter handles during the 2019 regular season. Sponsorship value is determined by analyzing the format, exposure, and engagement of branded media content for each NFL team.

Source: Zoomph, SportsAtlas SPONSORSHIP VALUE

Patriots Saints Texans Eagles Chiefs Ravens 49ers Seahawks Bills Titans Packers Vikings

NO. POSTS

433 842 693 386 530 638 334 332 600 376

$12.37m $10.38m $9.88m $8.44m $8.18m $6.35m $6.11m $5.60m $4.24m $2.02m $1.88m $1.51m

the pack compared with namingrights partners for the other playoff teams. The affinity shown toward M&T Bank demonstrates how financial investment must match a strong partner-fit to maximize investment.

The disparity in value ear ned among the playoff teams shows that on-field success must be accompanied by consistent branded content and strong follower engagement to maximize value for partners on social. While publicity and awareness — which sponsorship value helps encapsulate — are important metrics, many companies enter partnerships with NFL teams with the ultimate goal of improving loyalty toward their brand.

Strong brand affinity of a playoff team’s followers toward a namingrights sponsor helps illustrate the connection that a well-crafted partnership can create and the loyalty that can be gained through these key partnerships.

Will Cavanaugh is a market analyst at SportsAtlas, a new business intelligence platform powered by Sports Business Journal. To find out more, go to www.sportsatlas.com.

AVERAGE VALUE PER POST

$28.6k $12.3k $14.3k $21.9k $15.4k $10.0k $18.3k $16.9k $7.1k $5.4k $9.9k $5.2k

191 289

NAMING RIGHTS AFFINITY Ravens followers are 6.1 times more likely than all NFL followers to have a positive impression of M&T Bank. Zoomph measures brand affinity across social media by identifying diehard fans of each team and calculating the subsegment of diehard fans who additionally either follow or have actively engaged with the brand in question.

Note: Two playoff teams — the Packers and Chiefs — do not have a stadium naming-rights partner.

6X

Ravens-M&T Bank 6.1 Vikings-U.S. Bank 5.8 Bills-New Era 5. 2 Eagles-Lincoln Financial 4 .3 Seahawks-CenturyLink 4 . 0 Texans-NRG Energy 3.6 Patriots-Gillette 3.1 Titans-Nissan 3.1 49ers-Levi’s 3.1 Saints-Mercedes Benz 1.5

AS LIKELY

2X 5X

3X 4X

Source: Zoomph, SportsAtlas

J A N U A R Y 27- F E B R U A R Y 2 , 2 02 0

|

51

OPINION

Platform power: Social influencers are creating opportunity in combat sports INCE THE EARLY DAYS of media, countless

Two influencers entering a new industry are Jake athletes have aspired to become musicians and Logan Paul, brothers who rose to fame as conor actors, while musicians and actors have tent creators on social media. In 2018, they partaken their own shots at competing with athletes. ticipated in amateur boxing grudge matches that With a handful of exceptions to the were livestreamed by millions of viewrule, these performers have failed to ers. The novel concept reached new

BY NAKISA make the transition successfully. heights in 2019, when Logan faced felBIDARIAN The tide, however, may finally be low internet celebrity KSI in the duo’s turning in their favor. Advances in professional boxing debut. The event digital technology are now combining aired live on DAZN, was the platform’s sports and media properties across emerging OTT fifth most-streamed event of the year and sold out subscription streaming platforms (DAZN, ESPN+, Staples Center.

UFC Fight Pass) and social media channels (YouWhat is the business case for integrating influTube, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok). This new landencers with combat sports? scape is resetting the playing field for modern As we move toward a live entertainers and athletes. sports broadcasting world A new wave of online personalities is also emergwhere direct-to-consumer ing, who have garnered global influence by publishis the norm, OTT providers ing multimedia content for subscribers across their need to place greater emsocial accounts. By promoting themselves as prodphasis on creating innovaucts, influencers have developed personal brands tive funnels to access new customers who can be that build cultural capital, develop para-social relaconverted to subscribers. By tapping into influtionships with consumers and provide new revenueencer’s respective audiences, these platforms are making opportunities. This clout is a highly-valuable attracting a new community of viewers, while reintangible asset, with Google/Nielsen finding 60% ducing the costs of customer acquisition and subof YouTube users would make buying decisions based scriber conversion. The table below compares the on the recommendations of their favorite “YouTuber” online followings of boxing’s biggest names against over their favorite TV or movie star. their “YouTuber” counterparts, providing insight The outspoken personas these influencers portray into how large — and valuable — this audience fuel misconceptions about their intelligence, comcrossover can be. mon sense and character. In reality, they are soThe boxing industry’s most powerful promoters phisticated artists who have scaled their operations recognize the value these influencers can bring. alongside rising subscriber numbers. Flanked by Matchroom Boxing President Eddie Hearn shared teams working 24/7 to release content and interact the following perspective: “Boxing is experiencing with their audiences, these entrepreneurs are esa golden age right now and guys like Jake, Logan sentially running mini-production companies. and KSI are turning a new, global demographic

S

towards boxing and cultivating the next generation of fans. Once these new fans experience the excitement of a live boxing event, it’s our job to make sure we keep them hooked with engaging content and a wide range of world-class boxing and combat sports offered on DAZN and other platforms.”

For the participating celebrities, and the sport of boxing itself, this new digital combat sports venture counters the risk of their fans “aging out” as interests shift and the platforms through which they consume content change. Influencers are also legitimizing themselves as multi-talented performers and establishing secondary revenue streams, while extending credibility among their fan bases.

While there are less grueling ways to expand one’s career, the tradeoff is combat sports’ uniquely global appeal. It transcends nationality, ethnicity, and language and is easily understood. This naturally lends itself to influencers and OTT platforms wanting to reach an international audience.

Having spent time with Jake and Logan, I have witnessed their dedication to boxing. They respect

OTT providers need to place greater emphasis on creating innovative funnels to access new customers.

BY THE NUMBERS: DIGITAL TALE OF THE TAPE

The Legends

The Present

The Future

52

|

YouTube

Instagram

Facebook

Twitter

Total

Floyd Mayweather

173K

22.9M

13.4M

7.9M

44.3M

Mike Tyson

906K

8.9M

7.8M

5.4M

23.1M

Manny Pacquiao

31.7K

5.6M

12.4M

2.6M

20.6M

Anthony Joshua

572K

10.8M

2.7M

2.8M

16.9M

Canelo Alvarez

1.9K

6.4M

3.2M

1.5M

11.1M

Deontay Wilder

2.5K

2.5M

628K

617K

3.7M

Logan Paul

20.1M

17.1M

15M

5.3M

57.5M

Jake Paul

19.7M

12.8M

5M

3.7M

41.2M

KSI

20.9M

7.7M

2.3M

5.4M

36.3M

J A N UA R Y 2 7 - F E B R UA R Y 2, 2 0 2 0

Total combined 88 million

31.7 million

135 million

the craft and view this as a long-term commitment.

Jake Paul’s professional debut, a Jan. 30 match with fellow YouTuber “AnEsonGib,” represents the next iteration of this trend. Jake has spent months training in the iconic Big Bear mountains with boxing legend “Sugar” Shane Mosley. The bout is positioned on a strong card headlined by WBO middleweight champion Demetrius Andrade, who is all for having these influencers on the same card: “Having them involved with this event is a positive for our sport.

You’re talking about a totally new demographic, millions of which are new to the sport of boxing. You can’t argue those numbers. If we are able to retain even a small percentage of those viewers, then it’s a good thing for me, and for the entire sport of boxing.”

The shrewd decision to schedule the event ahead of Super Bowl weekend, in the same host city of Miami, presents opportunity to engage an even larger segment of mainstream sports fans, too.

So, what’s next for this new sports niche? Following the commercial success of Logan Paul and KSI’s feud, and the 2017 boxing contest between Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather, select athletes are noticing the upside of crossover events as well.

Look no further than the ongoing feud between Logan and NFL standout Antonio Brown as an example of convening different communities under the combat sports umbrella.

There are plenty of influencers with the potential to become combat sports competitors, who have already showcased work ethic by cultivating their millions of subscribers. Whether any influencers and non-boxing athletes become proficient enough to face tenured boxers remains to be seen. In the meantime, there is no ceiling on this unique fusion of entertainment, sports and technology.

Nakisa Bidarian is founder of BAVAFA Companies, an investment and consultancy firm. He co-founded and was the CEO of Fertitta Capital and prior to that was the CFO and CSO of Ultimate Fighting Championship.

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

FACES & PLACES RACING SEASON AHEAD Senior management from NASCAR and International Motor Sports Association and executives from Daytona International Speedway, Homestead-Miami Speedway and Sebring International Raceway visited the Florida Governor’s Mansion in Tallahassee on Jan. 15: Tracey Lesetar-Smith, SVP and general counsel, NASCAR; Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and first lady Casey DeSantis with son Mason and daughter Madison; Lesa France Kennedy, EVP, NASCAR; NASCAR President Steve Phelps; Daryl Wolfe, EVP and chief sales and operations officer, NASCAR.

MEDAL MOMENT

Debbie Yow, who served as athletic director at Saint Louis, Maryland and N.C. State, received the NFF John L. Toner Award for excellence in athletics administration from NFF President and CEO Steve Hatchell (left) and Chairman Archie Manning last month at the 62nd National Football Foundation annual Awards Dinner in New York City.

The NFF also inducted 13 players and two coaches into the College Football Hall of Fame at the event, including Patrick Willis (Ole Miss), Vince Young (Texas) and Terrell Buckley (Florida State).

Daytona International Speedway; Melissa Macatee (2); AP Images

Former NFL player Steve Gleason received the Congressional Gold Medal on Jan. 15 during a ceremony in Statuary Hall on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. Gleason, honored for his work as an advocate for people with ALS, is joined at the ceremony by his wife, Michel, son, Rivers, and former teammate, Saints quarterback Drew Brees.

NFF AWARDS DINNER

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

J A N U A R Y 27- F E B R U A R Y 2 , 2 02 0

|

53

CLOSING SHOT Cash-strapped startups like Pets.com were required to pay upfront for their Super Bowl spots in 2000. The pet supply company soon found that its finances, and mascot, were stetched a little too thin.

Sock It To Them Super Bowl XXXIV marked the peak of the dot-com era, and signaled its subsequent bust, as online startups flooded the advertising market in search of customers and investment dollars.

TWENTY YEARS AGO this week, the dot-

coms — and one memorable sock puppet — came to play as part of the Super Bowl XXXIV broadcast on ABC. Before the St. Louis Rams held on to stop the Tennessee Titans 1 yard short of a game-tying touchdown on the last play of the game, much of the Super Bowl chatter revolved around the dot-com advertising boom.

Ed Erhardt, who retired last year as head of sales at ESPN, remembers the deluge of dot-com money: 14 dot-coms bought $40 million worth of ads, roughly one-third of the $130 million-plus haul for the day. Spots sold for an average of $2.2 million per 30 seconds.

“The guys did an amazing job, [they] sold the crap out of it,” Erhardt said.

“It really changed the game in terms of people using the Super Bowl as a marketing stunt as opposed to an ad

54

|

J A N UA R Y 27- F E B R UA R Y 2, 2020

buy. They were really using the Super Bowl to raise money.”

Some were more fortunate than others. Perhaps the poster child for the soon-to-be dot-com bust was Pets.com, a San Francisco-based online pet supply company known for a sock puppet mascot.

Pets.com was among the new ad-

sales teams of ESPN and ABC Sports.

Brian Sikorski sold many of the Super Bowl XXXIV spots as vice president of sports sales at ESPN/ABC. What stood out to him were the unusual requirements that came with the influx of new buyers.

“One of the things we did is we were taking cash up front,” Sikorski said.

“This was new business, there were new categories coming out of the woodwork.” vertisers for Super Bowl XXXIV on Jan. 30, 2000. By November of that year, the company was out of business. Others had more staying power, including WebMD, Monster.com and Autotrader.com.

Parent company Disney hired Erhardt in October 1999 to merge the

“Normally you bill an agency and then, 30 days later, they pay. No — we did cash up front. We had, like, $40 million up front. We weren’t going to let them get out of Dodge without paying their bill.”

Sikorski said the presence of the dot-coms became the business story

of the game, even if USA Today’s Bruce Horovitz, among others, ripped the finished product. Horovitz, appearing on “Good Morning America” the day after the Super Bowl, said dot-com advertisers “walked off with little more than bruised egos and red faces.”

Maybe so, but Sikorski has nothing but fond memories.

“This was new business, there were new categories coming out of the woodwork,” he said. “These were new advertisers in the advent of all these new competitive companies. For whatever reason, that was when they wanted to kick this off. It was phenomenal. Because here we were, and we were sitting there and here comes another one.”

Erik Spanberg writes for the Charlotte Business Journal, an affiliated publication.

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

Getty Images

BY ERIK SPANBERG

HE GAVE MIAMI ITS HEAT You can’t tell our story without David Stern: the man who helped turn a Magic City into a Basketball Town.

His immeasurable impact on the league and unmatched love for the game will never be forgotten.